


Side By Side

by GilShalos1



Series: Sidelong Glances [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Action/Adventure, Addiction, Angst and Humor, Complete, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-04 11:22:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 38
Words: 70,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3066002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GilShalos1/pseuds/GilShalos1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killeen Hanmount gave up her position in the Kirkwall Guard to follow Cullen Rutherford to the frozen roof of the world because he couldn't pass up a chance to save the world - and her world isn't worth saving without him in it. But watching the man who thinks of her as a good friend and reliable soldier fall in love with the beautiful Herald of Andraste turns out to be even harder than watching the world fall apart.<br/>The events of Dragon Age: Inquisition from the perspective of Cullen's loyal and trusted second-in-command.</p><p>Now with art!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Worst Idea Ever

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [并肩](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963058) by [landanding](https://archiveofourown.org/users/landanding/pseuds/landanding)



[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=az7zbc)

* * *

 

_This is absolutely the worst idea ever._

 

Killeen Hanmount shifted her weight on her frozen feet, tucked her hands inside her sword-belt for whatever illusory warmth it might provide, and eyed her Commander’s fur-collared cloak enviously.

 

She’d teased him with the rest of them when he’d incautiously taken Varric’s advice and entrusted his one-and-only bear pelt — title-less Templars don’t get many opportunities for sport hunting — to a tailor who, it’d turned out, did most of his work for _The Blooming Rose_. Cullen’d had no choice but to swallow the humiliation and wear the multi-coloured result, _beggars not being in the position to be choosy_ , but since they’d arrived in the frozen wastes of the Frostback Mountains, he’d been looking distinctly smug.

 

_And warm. Distinctly warm._

 

“Remind me again why I’m here,” she said, her breath puffing into fog in the frozen air. _Surprised it doesn’t freeze solid and fall straight to the ground. Snow. Fall straight to the snow._

 

“You couldn’t turn down the chance to save the world?” Commander Cullen suggested.

 

“No, that’s _you_. Try again.”

 

“Travel to foreign lands, meet interesting people?”

 

“No, that’s why I _should_ have joined the merchant navy.”

 

“You get seasick.”

 

“There’s that,” she agreed. “Oh, wait, I remember now. I’m here because _you_ asked me. Bastard.”

 

He chuckled softly. “You were the one who agreed, Kill. You could’ve said no.”

 

She couldn’t have, though. _That is about seven-eights of why this is absolutely the worst idea ever._ They’d been friends of a sort since soon after Cullen had arrived in Kirkwall, the hello-how-are-you variety of friendship that makes people in armour easy with each other even if one of them is a Templar with shadows at the back of his gaze and the other is a lowly city guard. Fighting side by side against abominations loose in the streets had turned that into something more, shared memories becoming shared stories becoming sharing stories.

 

When Cassandra Pentaghast had persuaded Cullen to leave Kirkwall and the Templars and help her try and save the world from the Mage Rebellion, he’d asked Killeen to help. _I have no idea what the Inquisition’s fighting forces will be like_ , he’d said. _I need at least one shield I can trust — and probably help getting the rest into shape_.

 

And she couldn’t say no.

 

She could have said _no_ to a friend, even to the really good friend he’d become since the nightmare of Kirkwall’s fall.

 

_But not to Cullen._ The thought of him leaving, crossing the sea and perhaps getting himself killed or just finding a new life and never coming back had filled Killeen with panic.

 

Because little as she liked to admit it, even in the privacy of her own head, _friendship_ was neither the beginning nor the end of her feelings for Cullen Rutherford.

 

In the privacy of her own head was the only place she _was_ going to admit it. He’d never shown the slightest interest in her, and after one drunken evening of embarrassing confessions she understood he never would.

 

_Hard to measure up to the Hero of Ferelden._

 

Harder still when said Hero was _delicate … fragile, almost … I could have put my hands around her waist, if I’d ever dared_ and oneself was a strapping guard with shoulders like a blacksmith and a face that had been, at best, ‘handsome’ before an abomination’s claws had shredded half of it.

 

But, even knowing that, Killeen had not been able to say no, had not been able to bear the idea of him turning and walking away and out of her life forever. If all she could be was his friend, she would take it, for every last second she could, and know that it was _her_ shoulder beside his when shields were up and blades were out, and it was _her_ shoulder he leant on when they’d both had a little too much to drink to be entirely steady on their feet. She was his friend, perhaps the closest he had, these days, the one who stood guard outside his tent on the road so that when she heard the nightmares starting she could slip inside and wake him before his screaming startled the camp, the one who heard in between the half-sentences and silences when he talked of the fall of the Circle Tower, the one who had the right to tease him about his cloak and call him a bastard.

 

If her Commander _had_ had a lover, Killeen would still see more of him than any woman sharing his bed, would still understand him better than any soft-handed, _delicate_ mage-girl could, would still spend all day and late into the evenings with him, training recruits, patrolling the camp, working out supply lines and solving the thousand tiny problems of a military encampment before any of them could turn into great big disasters.

 

Always, the two of them, side by side, until soldiers, seeing one of them, automatically looked for the other, until a messenger seeking Killeen would spot Cullen’s much-more-recognizable golden hair and call out _her_ name.

 

But it was harder than she thought, seeing him every day, all day, seeing him in the morning at the wash-troughs in the casual immodesty of fighting men and women, hearing his voice raised in command or lowered in a private joke. The pain of never seeing him again was beginning to seem like a bargain compared to the pain of never being seen by him, not really, not as she wanted to be seen.

 

Not as a soldier, one he trusted, one he relied on. Not as a friend, one he confided in, one he let see some of the scars he bore.

 

_As a woman._

 

She sighed. “Absolutely the worst idea ever,” she muttered.

 

And the sky split open.


	2. Shoulder to Shoulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Herald saves the day.

The blast of wind knocked them both off their feet. Killeen blinked her eyes clear of snow and grit and stared upwards.

 

_It’s still there._

 

_Whatever the fuck it is._

 

She scrambled up, extending a helping hand to Cullen a half-second after he no longer needed it. Without a word they broke into a flat-out run, pelting side-by-side down the path toward the gates. Killeen checked her stride just long enough to grab one of the Spymaster’s scouts and tell him to get the alarm bell ringing if he had to do it himself, then stretched her legs to catch up with her Commander.

 

The soldiers were standing gaping at the giant rift in the sky, _for which I have some sympathy, but **now** is not the time_. Killeen grabbed shoulders, called names, chivied and swore and shoved them into some semblance of order as the alarm bell began tolling and the off-duty rosters began to arrive, streaming out of the gates in various states of dress and undress. She could hear Cullen doing the same, voice sharp with an impatience she shared.

 

_We have to get up there. Fast._

 

_Now._

 

But they would do no good without troops in good order and so she cursed and cuffed and called up insults from the distant memory of her own training under the toughest drillmaster Kirkwall had ever seen until finally marching order was achieved.

 

Cullen led from the front, as always, and he set a fast pace that Killeen knew most of their newer recruits would have trouble keeping. She jogged forward to suggest they split into two groups to avoid stragglers ending up cut off, but before she had gotten more than a word out they both saw a figure running toward them from the direction of the Temple — sprinting, desperately, falling, getting up and staggering on. A chantry scholar, from his torn and filthy robes.

 

He ran right into them and would have run past if Cullen hadn’t grabbed him by the arms. “What happened?”

 

“They’re falling from the sky! From the fucking sky!” The scholar pointed upwards, as if Killeen and Cullen might not know where the sky was without his help. “Falling! From the sky!”

 

“Pull yourself _together_ , man,” Killeen snapped. “ _What_ is falling from the sky?”

 

“ _Demons_!”

 

“In the Temple?” Maker, that was bad if it was so. Thousands of people in there, not defenceless people, true, mages and Templars, but mages could be an extra special problem when demons were involved. “Demons in the Temple?”

 

“There is no Temple!” the scholar wailed. “It’s gone! All gone! Everything! All of it! All of them!”

 

Killeen allowed herself one half-second of stunned shock, saw Cullen do the same, and then with brutal force of will turned her mind to the soldiers behind her, some of whom had friends or family up there, now murmuring in horror and dismay.

 

As she turned back to them she heard Cullen telling the now-hysterical scholar to get down to Haven and tell his story to Leliana.

 

“Whatever’s up there, it’s bad!” Killeen called to their troops over the rising wind. “Which means there’s a lot of people who need help. We’re what they’ve got! Talking won’t help! Marching will! So come on!”

 

It was not the most inspirational of speeches, but she waved her arm, signalling _forward_ , and, _thank the Maker,_ they shook off fear and shock and followed.

 

Demons falling from the sky. “Can it be true?” she asked Cullen in an undertone as they jogged ahead of the soldiers.

 

“I’ve seen worse.” His mouth shut in a thin line, eyes cold. It was the way he looked, sometimes, when she woke him from the dreams. _Whatever nightmare lies ahead is nothing more than a reprise for **him**._

 

“You know what I’d like?” Killeen said conversationally. “Kittens.”

 

It startled him out his thoughts. “What?”

 

“Kittens falling from the sky. Only not from too high up, of course. That would just be messy.”

 

“Kittens falling from the sky,” Cullen repeated blankly.

 

“Or puppies. Or breadrolls. But no. It’s always demons, falling from the sky. Why is that, do you think? Is there some sort of demarcation thing going on? The sky is allowed rain, snow, hail, sleet, and demons, but never kittens or breadrolls.”

 

The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Do you take nothing seriously?”

 

“Breakfast,” Killeen said promptly. “And kittens.”

 

“But not demons?”

 

“Nah,” she said airily. “You and me have killed plenty of those before. How bad can it be?”

 

They rounded the last corner and the ruins of the Temple lay before them, bathed in the sickly green glow of the giant hole in the sky. Answering glows bloomed on the ground, grew, and took monstrous shape.

 

“You were saying?” Cullen said dryly, but despite the horror before them his eyes were clear, his shoulders straight. He turned to the soldiers behind them. “First company, with me! Second company, with Lieutenant Kill! Archers, cover! Knock those things back into the Fade!”

 

It was the beginning of what Killeen would realise only in retrospect were the worst three days of her life.

 

 _How bad can it be_ turned out to be _,_ _very bad indeed_ as they fought their way through the demons swarming outside the ruins of the Temple, more appearing as quickly as they dispatched them. Of survivors, there were few: those outside the Temple had fallen quickly to the demons and those inside … _Cullen won’t be the only one having nightmares from now on_.

 

_If any of us live long enough to get some sleep._

 

Then, miraculously, a survivor — falling from a newly-opened rift into the Fade almost at their feet, another, woman’s form visible for just a moment before the rift closed itself. Killeen and Cullen leapt forward, what was left of their soldiers now a single company at their backs.

 

“A woman,” Cullen said, kneeling to check. “Alive. A mage, I think, and —”

 

The rest of the sentence died unspoken as he, and everyone else, saw the mark on the woman’s hand, glowing and pulsing the same nauseating green as the hole in the heavens.

 

“It’s her!” one of the soldier’s said, and there was a murmur of agreement that had an ugly tone to it from the others. “Look! She did it! Kill her, quick!”

 

Killeen moved fast, spinning around to put her back to the unconscious woman and her shield and sword toward her own troops. She felt rather than heard Cullen move at the same time, rising to his feet and standing beside her, shoulder to shoulder.

 

“Nobody knows who did it!” he shouted. “And nobody knows if killing her will stop it or make it worse! We have to get her back to Haven to find out!”

 

“She killed the Divine!” someone shouted. “And all those other people!”

 

“And half our fucking comrades,” someone else added.

 

“And if she did she’ll pay. But not like this.” Cullen stood firm.

 

For a moment Killeen thought he wouldn’t sway them, felt his armoured shoulder firm against hers and almost laughed. In her most shameful secret fantasies she sometimes imagined that they’d die fighting side by side, shoulder to shoulder to the end, _but I never imagined it was going to be against our own._

 

Then she sensed a moment of hesitation, an ebbing of resolve among the soldiers about to become a mob. Cullen must have felt it too, because he picked that precise moment to bellow in his best parade-ground voice, “ _Stand down!”_

 

Those nearest them backed up a little. Swords lowered towards the ground.

 

Killeen took a breath and turned to look more closely at the possible mass murderer for whom she’d almost given her life.

 

_Skinny little thing, probably blond under that grime in her hair, can’t be more than twenty._

 

Cullen stooped and carefully gathered the mage in his arms, and Killeen saw her face, pretty as a doll’s, saw the mage’s face and saw her Commander’s face as he looked down at it and saw, for one brief flash of memory, her own face as it looked in the mirror these days.

 

Saw the future.

 

Closed her eyes and mind to it and turned back to their troops. “Form up! We’ve got to get her safely out of here to where she can be questioned - and tried, if it comes to that. Look sharp!”

 

They delivered the prisoner to the Left and Right Hands of the Divine — the almost certainly dead Divine, now, although identifying any of the bodies in what had been the Temple would be impossible. Their own wounded turned over to the care of Adan, they snatched a bite to eat, and back up the mountain.

 

_Back into the nightmare._

 

In the end, they had to withdraw from the Temple, and back down the valley, step by bitter step. Although smaller rifts were opening all over the valley, the worst of the demons were coming from the Temple and if they streamed out of it, down towards a town full of pilgrims and civilians … no.

 

Three days and three nights of hard fighting, snatching moments of rest and mouthfuls of bread and dried meat when they could. Their ranks thinned, swelled again with the addition of reinforcements, thinned again. _Not much longer,_ Killeen told herself, as she had been telling herself for days, but it no longer had the tone of an exhortation. _Not much longer. Not much longer until there’s too few of us to stand against another wave._

 

_Not much longer._

 

Then the word came to clear a way back to the Temple. They gathered themselves, summoning up every resource, and pushed forward. Men and women Killeen knew, had trained, fell with every few yards gained, with no time to mourn them, with barely enough time to even notice except as one more gap in their ranks, one more tactical problem to be solved.

 

They reached the Temple and found a rift spewing demons right before it.

 

“Hold!” Cullen’s voice roared above the din of battle and the demon’s screeching. “Hold the gates! For the Divine! For your lives! Hold!”

 

Swords rose and fell, demons shrivelled and burst, but there were always more demons, and there were fewer and fewer soldiers.

 

Killeen stumbled on a loose brick, too tired to compensate for the uneven footing and felt her ankle go. Move, move, move, the memory of her drillmaster screamed at her. _Stop moving on the battlefield and you’re as good as dead. Loose your sword and you’re as good as dead. Stay down and you’re as good as dead._ She rolled out of the way of a bolt of energy coming from some sort of green demon. _If you want to live, find your sword, get to your feet, no matter how bad it hurts. If you want to live, be on your feet with a sword in your hand._

 

She tried to get her feet under her and failed. _Well, fuck_. Something big and black was bearing down on her, all claws and teeth and evil. _Well, fuck, so this is it._

 

A sword blocked the creature’s downward swipe and sheared it in half on the backswing, and Cullen grabbed her arm and hauled her up without ceremony. “Fall back,” he ordered, and turned to engage another demon.

 

Killeen took a hobbling step away, toward their rear line, and saw bolts of lighting coming from that direction. She swung back. “We’re cut off.”

 

Then one of those bolts of lighting sizzled straight past her and lit up a demon like a candle.

 

“The mages are here!” someone yelled, and they were, and a woman Killeen recognised as the former Seeker who was one of the Hands of the Divine, and a foul-mouthed dwarf with a crossbow, and then —

 

The smell of the sea and a flash of light and the demons and the rift were gone.

 

Killeen decided it was safe to fall over, and did so. Over her head she could hear Cullen talking to the Seeker, could hear her telling him that it wasn’t her who had sealed the rift, it was the prisoner.

 

Turning her head, Killeen saw the prisoner, no longer unconscious, still ridiculously pretty.

 

“I hope they’re right about you,” Cullen said. “We’ve lost a lot of people getting you here.”

 

“We’ll see soon enough,” the prisoner replied in the clipped, precise accent of the noble-born — the accent Cullen copied, although Killeen had never worked out if he did it on purpose or unconsciously. _Well, that seals it,_ she thought. _A delicate, fragile, pretty little mage from the upper classes._

 

_He’s done for._

 

It didn’t seem a frivolous thought, despite the ending of the world all around them: it seemed all of a piece to her, right then.

 

“On your feet,” Cullen ordered them all. “Withdraw.”

 

Killeen tried to get up, hobbled a few steps, and then Cullen was beside her, pulling one arm over his shoulders and taking her weight. “What do you call that last move, Kill?” he asked as he hauled her toward the path down. “Don’t think I’ve seen you use it in practice.”

 

“Left feint with half-brick,” she gasped. “And I save it for _very_ special occasions.”

 

He laughed, no more than a puff of breath. “Let’s get out of here. This is in the hands of the Maker — and the prisoner — now.”

 

Half-way down the mountain, another convulsion in the sky made them stop. This time, though, the great gaping hole above them seemed different. Quieter, somehow.

 

“I think she did it,” Cullen said in admiration. “That little thing, and she went up against a hole in the sky and stared it into submission.”

 

“Thank the Maker,” Killeen said. _Looks like we’re not dying today, then._

 

It was a victory, limited, but still a victory.

 

But as her Commander helped her down the last stretch of trail to the welcoming lights of Haven, all Killeen wanted to do was weep.

 


	3. One One Foot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen does her best to act as a good friend should.

Killeen was sitting on the wall by the gates with her boot off and her foot and ankle in a snowdrift when they brought the prisoner back down. The mage was unconscious again, but rather than cradled in Cullen’s arms, her small, limp form was carried on a stretcher by two of the Spymaster’s scouts.

 

And another difference — from the remarks Killeen overheard as the small party passed her, the mage was no longer a prisoner. The Seeker, for one, seemed quite convinced that the mage had had nothing to do with the explosion that had destroyed the Temple. _Herald_ , someone said, _of Andraste herself._

 

Killeen closed her eyes for a moment. _He’ll hear she’s back soon enough_ , she argued with herself. _And you need to keep your weight off that ankle or it’ll take longer for the sprain to heal. And it’s not as if him knowing sooner will make any difference to her, or to anything important._

 

She sighed. _It will make a difference to Cullen._

 

There was no way she could get her boot back over her swollen ankle, so she tucked it under one arm and began to gingerly limp toward the tents where Cullen would be engaged in the frantic work of putting together some sort of fighting force out of what was left of their able-bodied soldiers and whichever of the refugees streaming in could hold a sword without cutting themselves. In fact, as she got closer, she could hear his voice raised at some hapless messenger who had brought unwelcome news.

 

“Tell Threnn I don’t care if she has to dig the iron with her bare hands! Harritt can’t make swords without metal, and we _need_ swords!”

 

“Yes, ser!” the poor man gasped, making his escape so quickly he almost knocked Killeen down as she drew back the flap of the tent.

 

“Scaring him won’t make him any more persuasive with the quartermaster,” she said.

 

“Might make him run faster,” Cullen muttered, eyes still on the document before him on his portable desk. “That woman, Maker’s breath! I’d tell her myself but I’m not sure I trust my temper.”

 

“Then here’s some news to sweeten your mood: she’s back. Alive. Not a prisoner or a suspect anymore, either.”

 

He did look up then, face clearing. “Alive?”

 

Killeen noted that he hadn’t needed to ask who _she_ was, with a little twist in her heart that she supposed she’d get used to. “Out for the count, but from what I heard, they weren’t worried.”

 

Cullen stood. “I should … Lady Cassandra will want to brief me as soon as possible.”

 

“Probably,” Killeen agreed, and then, because it was what a _friend_ would say, a _good friend_ who was nothing more: “And if you happened to look in on the brave and beautiful Herald of Andraste at the same time …”

 

He blushed and stammered something in which Killeen caught the word possibly, and then frowned. “Should you be walking around?”

 

She accepted the change of subject with relief. “No. But I thought you’d want to hear straight away.”

 

“Then sit down, for the Maker’s sake! I don’t need _you_ half-crippled on top of everything else!”

 

“If you move your giant bear-clad self out of the way,” Killeen said, “I’ll sit in your chair and make a dent in those reports while you go and get briefed while sitting at the bedside of a pretty girl with an adoring expression on your face.” She waved her hand. “Shoo. Away with you. Be off. And so forth.”

 

He came around the desk, and Killeen hopped awkwardly aside. For a moment they were in each other’s way in the narrow confines of the tent, and then Killeen solved the impasse by losing her balance.

 

Cullen grabbed her before she fell, hoisted her over one shoulder and carried her to the chair. “There,” he said, depositing her. “Stay put. That’s an order.”

 

“Your every whim is my command, _Commander_ ,” Killeen said.

 

“I’ll be back shortly.”

 

She pulled the stack of reports toward her. “Take your time,” she said with as much innuendo as she could manage.

 

He blushed again. “Kill, you’re going to be unbearable about this, aren’t you?”

 

“Absolutely,” she assured him.

 

Shaking his head, he ducked out of the tent, then startled her by ducking back. “Kill?”

 

“Still here.”

 

“Thank you,” he said, and was gone.

 

It set the pattern of the days that followed. The Inquisition formally declared, Cullen was one of the inner circle who met daily in the Chantry to plot their course, in the big war room Killeen never entered. Hours of his day were taken up with debating strategy and competing requests for help with the Inquisition’s diplomat, the Seeker, the Spymaster — and of course, the Herald herself. Killeen herself sat in his tent, disposing of as much of the routine paperwork of supply and requisitions as she could for him, limping outside to keep an eye on the troops training, strictly forbidding herself to listen for his footsteps outside announcing that he was back where he belonged, that he was hers again, at least for a while.

 

Refugees and pilgrims streaming in to Haven stretched their accommodation to its limits. New tents were erected for the troops, but there were never enough. Cullen’s tent grew even more cramped with the addition of a cot, then another for Killeen.

 

He didn’t say that he could only share his tent with someone who already knew about the nightmares, but then, he didn’t need to.

 

 _And it’s not as if,_ Killeen thought as she stared up at the canvas above her and listened to her Commander’s breathing in the dark, _anyone is going to gossip._

 

No, there would be no rumours of anything improper between Cullen and herself. For one thing, everyone in the camp had seen Cullen blush and stammer and gaze like a love-sick puppy whenever the Herald stopped by to talk to him — which she seemed to make a point of doing, every time she was passing and quite a few when, it seemed, she’d had to invent an excuse to be passing.

 

For another, Cullen was gloriously handsome, having come out of the mess at Kirkwall with only the slightest scar — which did nothing but save him from prettiness and add a hint of danger to his charm. While Killeen herself … she raised her hand to run her fingers over her face in the dark, feeling the raised lines of scars that striped her from forehead to chin. _And I wasn’t in his league to begin with._

 

No, if anyone imagined Killeen to have a romantic life, they’d envision some solid sergeant, balding, under tall, with a broken nose and the ability to drink anyone under the table. And in her experience, no-one ever imagined ugly women to have any romantic life at all.

 

A noise broke into her thoughts. “Maker … don’t …”

 

“Cullen,” she said softly. “You’re dreaming.”

 

He stilled.

 

Killeen waited a moment. “You awake?”

 

No answer. She could hear him breathing steadily and slowly again.

 

_Well, that’s something._

 

She herself lay awake quite some time longer, eyes open sightlessly against the dark.


	4. Arm In Arm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen goes too far.

A/N: Remember, reviews make plot bunnies breed!

* * *

 

 

 

“So she’s not back?” Killeen asked.

 

Cullen looked up from the report he’d been staring at sightlessly. “How did you …?”

 

“You look like someone just ate your last piece of cake.” She widened her own eyes mournfully and pulled the corners of her mouth down, sticking out her lower lip. “Oh, Maker, how shall I bear the absence of she who makes existence worthwhile? How shall I endure the grey, endless days before she returns and her smile makes the flowers bloom and the birds sing in —”

 

“ _Enough_!” he roared, flung down his paperwork, and stalked out of the tent.

 

 _All right, that was probably too far,_ Killeen thought, _although in my defence, he really is like some lovesick swain in a Varric Tethras novel._

 

 _Still_. Cullen’s obvious infatuation with a beautiful, brave, heroic woman was neither as inappropriate or humiliating as her own feelings were, but clearly it was not something he was comfortable enough about to take _all_ her teasing in good humour.

 

Killeen was debating just how long she ought to leave him to cool off before finding him and apologising when he surprised her by sticking his head back through the entrance of the head. “Walk with me.”

 

“Ser,” she said, getting to her feet and grabbing her walking stick.

 

He held the tent flap for her. “I’m not _that_ angry,” he said with the faintest hint of a smile. “Leg still bothering you?”

 

“Only when I laugh,” Killeen said, following him toward the edge of the frozen lake, and Cullen _did_ laugh. “You could still lend me your strong and manly arm, though. I don’t fancy doing the other one going arse over breakfast on a patch of ice.”

 

“Of course, my lady,” he said, and held out his arm with a courtly bow.

 

“If you’re being all chivalrous,” she said, taking it, “you could also lend me that abominable cloak.”

 

“Oh, now, _that’s_ a bridge too far,” Cullen said with a grin.

 

“Bugger. Worth a try, right?”

 

They came to a stop by the lake’s edge. “I’m surprised you haven’t stolen it while I sleep,” Cullen said.

 

“Don’t think I haven’t considered it.” She paused. “Cullen, I’m sorry, I —”

 

“It’s alright,” he said quietly. “I do … _worry_ , when she’s away. There are so many dangers in the Hinterlands right now, rogue Templars, apostate mages, bandits, not to mention demons. She’s not much more than a girl, and a strong wind would blow her over. All it would take is one mistake, hers, someone else’s, and … it would all be over. No Herald. No chance to close the Breach.”

 

“She’s pretty handy with that staff,” Killeen said as reassuringly as she could. “Lady Cassandra’s no pushover, either.”

 

“Yes. Still, I would prefer … ah, it would make much more strategic sense to keep the Herald safe. Or _safer_.” He sighed. “I tell you, I’d be much happier if Andraste had seen fit to give the Mark to _you_.”

 

It hurt, the more so for being completely unexpected.

 

_When thinking of someone expendable, someone whose absence or loss he wouldn’t miss, the name he plucks out of the air is **mine**._

 

Killeen breathed in, icy air knifing through her lungs, and out, and in again, before she trusted her voice to be steady. “Well, maybe you can arrange a swap. _I’d_ sure rather be out saving the world than getting writer’s cramp and eye-strain over all the bits of paperwork you’re too important to deal with these days.”

 

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I know you’ve taken on a lot, and I … well. I appreciate it.”

 

“It’s fine,” Killeen said. “I know how busy you are. I just need to complain every now and again so you don’t get the idea I actually _like_ it.”

 

“I’ll see if I can arrange some clerical help,” Cullen said. “It’s just …” He shrugged slightly. “When _you_ do it, I know it’s been done properly.”

 

 _Well, that’s something,_ Killeen thought.

 

Not much, not _enough_ , but _something_.

 

And if there was one thing she’d realised since they arrived in Haven what felt like a lifetime ago, it was that she was going to need to learn how to be satisfied with what she could get.

 

Even if what she could get was not very much at all.

 

“We should go in,” she said. “The paperwork _breeds_ , you know, if you leave it alone too long. Like nugs.”

 

Cullen chuckled. “In a minute,” he said, gaze on the other side of the lake, and then, unexpectedly, “I like this view. There was a lake near Honnleath and this … it reminds me of home.”

 

“You could go and visit,” Killeen suggested. “It can’t be far.”

 

“No,” Cullen said. “Not … not now. Perhaps when this is over. If the rifts have spread that far … I don’t want to see what might have happened. Not yet.” He turned to look down at her. “What about you?”

 

“Denerim seems untouched, so far,” Killeen said. “The last letter I had said everyone was fine. Well. Jean’s gotten herself knocked up by a fellow who turned out to be married to someone else and my father’s winter cough lasted longer than usual this year, but …” She shrugged. “On a scale of normal to howling demons raining from the sky, everyone is fine.”

 

“What will she do?” Cullen asked. “Your sister.”

 

“Maker knows,” Killeen said. “I gave up trying to predict Jean when she turned ten and I was off to Kirkwall two years later. And they’ve got my pay, most of it. If she can’t get someone to the altar in time, she’ll be embarrassed, but that’s the worst of it.”

 

“If, ah …” Cullen cleared his throat, and paused. “Not much to buy here, after all. If you need, if _they_ need, I could …”

 

 _That_ hurt, too, in a different way. _Maker_ , she thought, _if I had to fall in love with a man who will never love me back, why did it have to be with a **good** man? Why couldn’t he have been an utter bastard?_

 

_That would be **so** much easier to get over._

 

“Kill?” Cullen said, and she realised she’d been silent too long.

 

“No, it’s fine. They’re not in the lap of luxury but then, they’re not living in a tent in the frozen arse-end of Thedas either, so I guess they can cope.” A sound in the distance caught her ear, and she turned. “We should get back.”

 

“You really _do_ like paperwork,” Cullen teased.

 

Killeen let go of his arm and punched it, not softly. “I hear hoofbeats. Either we’re being invaded, or the Herald is back, and she found that horsemaster.”

 

Cullen turned back toward the town immediately, and then checked his stride, and offered his arm to her again.

 

Killeen waved him away. “Go on. I’ll be fine.”

 

His manners were good enough to make him hesitate a moment longer. “You’re sure …?”

 

“Absolutely. Go and greet the —” She hesitated, and then decided to be kind. “The horses. I’ll see you later.”

 

“All right.”

 

She stood still a moment longer, despite the cold, watching him hurry toward Haven’s gates. The winter sunlight drew glints from his fair hair and the ridiculous cloak swung around him with his easy, graceful stride.

 

Killeen took a deep breath. _Maker’s balls, I hope that Herald realises what she’s got in him._

 

Then, slowly, carefully, she made her way back across the snow alone.

 


	5. Step By Step

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which certain things are shared.

_It’s the smell that’s the worst._

 

_Not the smell of rotting flesh, bodies gone soft and ripe with maggots after too long in the summer heat. She’s been a guard in Kirkwall, has found bodies in cisterns and cellars and shallow graves and has learnt to ignore the sickly sweet odour that can’t be gotten out of clothes or hair with the most vigorous of washing._

 

_No. These bodies haven’t rotted. They’ve been roasted in an instant in a blast of heat and power beyond imagination, shrivelled and frozen in their last second’s posture of prayer or flight or despair._

 

_She makes her way between them, sword out, every sense stretched to the utmost to detect the next demon, following the man stalking ahead of her through this nightmare._

 

_“Kill. Kill, come on.”_

 

_That doesn’t make any sense to her, because she’s right behind him, will **always** be right behind him, even in this nightmare of cooked and roasted corpses that stretched ahead of them further the she can see._

 

_“Come on, now, Kill.”_

 

_And they smell like they’ve been cooked and roasted, they smell like a Lord’s kitchen preparing for a feast, and her mouth floods with saliva in an uncontrollable, disgusting reflex as if —_

 

_“Kill. Kill, come on. Wake up. Wake up, Kill.”_

 

And Killeen was in her own cot in a chilly tent outside the gates of Haven, Cullen bending over her, his hands firm on her shoulders, face intent and frowning in the dim light of the brazier.

 

“Wake up, come on now, wake up,” he said again.

 

“I’m —”

 

The smell was still in her nostrils, though, and before she could get out the word awake her mouth filled with sour saliva and cold sweat prickled on her face.

 

Cullen unceremoniously emptied the wastepaper basket by his desk onto the floor, seized her by the arm and hauled her up to lean over the edge of the cot. Killeen retched uncontrollably, even after the remnants of her dinner had spattered into the bottom of the basket and there was nothing to bring up but sour bile.

 

“You’re all right,” Cullen said, his hand on her back. “It’s over. It’s past. You’re all right. You’re safe.”

 

Killeen managed to catch her breath enough to speak. “Maker, I’m sorry —”

 

“It’s all right.” His voice, like his hand, was steady and warm. “It’s all right. You’re all right. It’s over, now.”

 

“I —” Shameful, humiliating tears.

 

“I know. _I_ know, Kill. I know.”

 

The spasms left her, finally, and Cullen let her roll back onto the cot. “Sorry.”

 

“What was it?”

 

Killeen shook her head. “I can’t —”

 

He gripped her shoulder. “Kill. It’s a nightmare until it’s a memory. Tell me what it was.”

 

“Oh, like you tell me?” she snapped.

 

He went away from her in an instant, without moving, hand still on her shoulder but so completely withdrawn she wouldn’t have known he was still in the tent without it. The one thing she’s never asked, that he’s never volunteered, the one step into trust that neither of them has taken — what exactly is it that wakes him in a cold sweat in the small hours of the night?

 

“Maker, I’m sorry, Cullen, I —”

 

And he came back to her just as fast. “No.” He squeezed her shoulder. “You’re right. It was an unfair question.”

 

He stood, picked up the basket, and set it outside the tent entrance where the ambient night-time temperatures of Haven would freeze the contents solid before they could smell.

 

Killeen expected him to lie back down again, but instead he sat on the edge of her cot. “Wine?” he said. “To freshen your mouth?”

 

“Maker, yes.”

 

He could reach the desk from where he sat, and poured her a goblet, poured himself one as well. Drinking gave Killeen an excuse to lift herself on her elbows, because flat on her back with Cullen leaning over her was too close to her secret imaginations to be entirely comfortable.

 

Cullen took a long draught from his own goblet. “They show you what you most want to see,” he said.

 

“The demons?” Killeen ventured.

 

“Some demons. Desire demons, the kind that took over the Circle Tower. They offer you what you most want.”

 

“So …” Killeen pushed herself to a more upright position. “So if someone offers me a pay-rise and a transfer somewhere warm, I should scream for a Templar?”

 

It wrung a laugh from him, barely more than a whimper. “If that’s the limit of your ambitions, you’re probably safe. But ….”

 

Killeen waited. When he didn’t go on, she offered, “But if it isn’t?”

 

He looked away. “They showed me … _her_.”

 

Killeen sipped her wine with the sense of stepping out onto thin and cracking ice. “The Hero?”

 

“Yes.” Cullen drained his goblet. “The things she said … the things she _did_ … you can’t imagine”

 

She _could_ imagine, though. Could imagine a demon wearing Cullen’s face, taking her in his arms, whispering words of love. Strong, slender hands running down her back, sliding up to cup her breasts, those scarred lips whispering words of undying adoration before they pressed kisses to her neck, her collarbone, and below …

 

Oh, yes. Killeen could imagine.

 

“I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “That must have been …”

 

“Horrible?” Cullen said, meeting her gaze with the hint of a smile.

 

Killeen refused to smile back. “ _Unbearable_ ,” she said.

 

He looked away, looked back. “Yes.”

 

“But you survived it.”

 

“ _Someone_ survived it,” Cullen said. “I’m not always sure it was _me_.”

 

Killeen wanted, so acutely it was a physical pain in her chest, to hold him, to show him with the strength of her arms that _whoever_ came out the other side of that nightmare it was a good man, a man who was loved, a man who would be safe from all the terrors in the dark of the moon for now and every tomorrow.

 

But it was not _her_ arms he wanted around him, it was not _her_ reassurances which would keep the demons at bay in the depths of the night.

 

“The smell,” she said. Instead of touching him, instead of offering the comfort that only the woman he loves could grant, she gave him the friend’s trade-off — _my shame for yours_. “Like roasting meat. It made me _hungry_.”

 

Cullen grimaced, and she wished desperately to take the words back, to have him not know, not ever know — until he nodded, and said, “Me too.”

 

He was lying. The Commander lied rarely, and badly, and he was lying now.

 

_Lying to make me feel better._

 

“Thank you,” she said.

 

“You’ve woken _me_ , often enough,” he said lightly, and stood. “It’s still a while before dawn. Try to get back to sleep, if you can.”

 

Killeen sketched a salute, and lay back down. “You should, too.”

 

The breath of a laugh. “I know.”

 

He didn’t, though. She heard him moving around, saw the warm bloom of lamplight through her eyelids, and then the rustle of paperwork.

 

“Cullen.”

 

“Still here.”

 

“Mages go through the Harrowing, don’t they? Go into the Fade and face demons there?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“So she probably already knows. How it can be. Probably something similar happened to her.”

 

Cullen was still a moment, so still that Killeen could hear nothing but his breathing and the crackle of the lampwick and the slow whisper of snow against the roof of the tent. “That’s not … a pleasant thought.”

 

She had to push the words out past the lump in her throat. “She might need someone to talk to. Someone who understands, too.” _Someone who can understand what happened to **you**._

 

Another silence. “She might.”

 

It was the most she could do — perhaps not the most someone else could have done, someone who didn’t feel their eyes burn with unshed tears at the thought of the Herald’s pretty face soft with sympathy, her hand resting gently on Cullen’s arm, but it was definitely, absolutely, the most Killeen could do.

 

_For now,_ she promised herself. _Tomorrow I’ll do better. Tomorrow I’ll be a better friend, the friend he deserves._

 

_One step at a time._

 


	6. Blow By Blow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen does what needs to be done.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who’s commented and left kudos — keep ‘em coming, please! It’s the only payment I get!

* * *

 

 

Cullen came back from the Chantry with a face so grim and forbidding that even Killeen felt that discretion might be the better part of valour, just this once.

 

She turned her attention back to the soldiers drilling in front of them. “No, not like _that_ , Farrah! Up and _under,_ look —” She seized the man’s arm, guided it through the thrust with herself as the target. “There. Ribcages are more durable than you think.”

 

“Yes, ser,” he said, nodding.

 

Killeen let him go back to practising it. She was glancing around for someone else who needed correction, _and Maker knows I won’t need to look far with this lot_ , when Cullen spoke.

 

Not to her. To all of them.

 

“Form up, two lines, face to face!”

 

They scrambled to do as he ordered. Killeen took two long strides to reach Cullen’s side. “You’re taking this one?”

 

The look he gave her was as cold as the ice on the lake behind them. “From the looks of them, I’m hardly likely to do any worse.”

 

Usually, Killeen could joke or tease or flat-out bully him out of his darker moods, but she recognised the signs. There was only one way to handle Cullen in this particular variant of foul temper.

 

“Yes, ser,” she said crisply, and jogged to grab her own sword and shield and join the lines.

 

Even Killeen was panting and blinking sweat out of her eyes by the time Cullen finished putting them through their paces. Some of the newer recruits, without the years of conditioning she had, were retching and coughing, wobbling on their feet. In clipped, precise words, the Commander told him exactly what he thought of them, of their technique, their endurance, their dedication, and their likelihood of doing the Inquisition any good when faced with a _real_ foe.

 

The words stung, even not directed at her. _Maker’s balls, man, they’re doing their best, and their best isn’t all that bad for a bunch of farmers and weavers and Maker-knows what else who haven’t had a sword in their hand before this month unless it was a wooden one and they were playing at Grey Wardens with their children_! Near her, someone began crying, the soft humiliated snivelling of a man who, if Killeen had any experience to know, would be turning in shield and sword by the end of the day.

 

And Cullen showed no sign of stopping.

 

Killeen sighed a little, closed her eyes. _I really, really don’t want to do this._

 

_I really, really am going to have to._

 

She opened her eyes, and pitched her voice to reach not just the men and women near her, but Cullen as well. “Looks like _someone_ had a tiff with his lady-love.”

 

Shocked silence, nervous titters, and Cullen’s face white with anger, lips tight, eyes blazing. “I _beg_ your pardon, Hanmount?”

 

“I _said_ , _Commander_ , that just because you can’t get your ashes hauled is no reason to take it out on us.”

 

“ _Step forward_!” he snapped.

 

Killeen did, just slow enough to be slightly insubordinate. “Am I on report?”

 

“What do _you_ think?”

 

“I think that being camped in a frozen wasteland a couple of miles from a giant, demon-spewing hole in the sky makes latrine duty seem a bit tame, to be honest, ser.” _Every one of these poor bastards volunteered to be first in line when all the terrors of the Fade come howling down that hill, Commander, and you by-the-Maker **know** it._

 

“Since you’re so confident we’ve done enough practice,” Cullen said, “why don’t you demonstrate? Guard yourself.”

 

It was barely enough warning to get her shield up, but Killeen had been half-expecting it, knew very well the sight of Cullen Rutherford with a burning need to hit something that would hit back and no target in easy reach. His first blow skidded off her shield and then she was leaping back as the soldiers scattered, getting as much space between them as she could.

 

They’d sparred before, sparred _hard_ before, and fought side-by-side and shoulder-to-shoulder in more fights than she could easily count. She knew every move he had, and knew the counter to them.

 

 _Of course,_ she thought, circling to the left, _the reverse is also true._

 

And he had reach and height and weight on her and, on a good day, speed.

 

Killeen kept her distance, knowing the only hope she had of avoiding a complete drubbing was to not let him close with her where he could use the advantage of his size to hammer her down. If she could keep him moving until he started to tire … _but then, he’s only been **watching** us run through our paces for the last hour._

 

Likely, she’d tire long before he did.

 

_This is going to **hurt**._

 

And then he was on her, moving too fast for her to duck away on the slippery, half-frozen mud of the training ground. They traded blows, and Cullen’s landed on her shield with a force that sent shock-waves to her shoulder. He wasn’t holding back. _Can’t take too many more of those._

 

He knew she’d never lock shields with him, not against an opponent bigger and heavier, and so that was exactly what Killeen did, leveraging that half-second of surprise and a moment’s decent footing into a thump and _heave_ that got him off her and let her circle away again.

 

She sucked air, raised her voice. “Who’s keeping the book?”

 

A woman’s hesitant voice. “Me, ser.”

 

“What odds on me?”

 

“Uh …” The woman cleared her throat. “Seven to one. Uh, against. Ser.”

 

“Fuck the lot of you for disloyal bastards,” Killeen said. “Two silver on myself.”

 

Cullen came forward again. “Over confidence has always been your problem.” As Killeen moved to the right to avoid him he changed direction smoothly without even a flicker in his eyes or a pause in his words to warn her, brought his sword around in a low sweep that would have broken her ankles had it landed.

 

She jumped over it, unable to leap back without a clear idea of what the surface was like behind her, and Cullen was on her again, one two three hard blows on her shield. She got him in the thigh in exchange, sword clanging off his armour, saw the flinch in his eyes as the force of it drove the cuisse into the flesh beneath, then let her shield drop from an arm gone numb and limp, lunged forward, and head-butted him in the face.

 

Then they were both on the ground, Cullen’s nose streaming blood, Killeen doing her best to keep her weight on his sword arm and Cullen scrabbling for purchase in the snow to heave her off. The slippery conditions were in _her_ favour, now, though, and she wasn’t about to let him flip them over. She hammered with her sword hilt at the point of his shoulder where his pauldron met the cuirass, the weak point where the lacing was all that kept the metal plates together, once, twice, felt it give as Cullen buffeted her in the side of her head with his shield, managed one more blow and found herself thrown off him.

 

Rolled, rolled, came to her feet and spun to face him.

 

His sword arm was hanging limp and as Killeen watched he threw his own shield aside and switched his sword to his left hand.

 

Her ears were ringing. His nose was bleeding. They were both down to swords, but although Cullen was almost as good with his off-hand, it was still _almost_.

 

They were both cautious now, circling, feinting.

 

“Odds?” Killeen called.

 

“Four to one,” the bookmaker answered. “Against.”

 

“You’re breaking my heart, the lot of you.”

 

Cullen worked his right arm, flexing that hand. _He’ll have feeling back soon,_ Killeen thought, knowing from experience just how it felt to take a blow at that point of the shoulder-joint. _And then I’m done._

 

_Finish it fast._

 

Not much chance, but her best.

 

She went in low, from the right. Swords met, clanged, grated, and they were face to face, her lesser strength pitted against his weaker side.

 

“So,” Killeen said softly, “any idea on how we get out of this?”

 

An answering spark in his eyes, _thank the Maker_. Cullen kept his voice low as well. “You always did neglect to plan your withdrawals.”

 

“Funny, I said the same thing in my last letter to Jean.”

 

His lips twitched. “You could slip on the ice.”

 

“ _You_ could slip on the ice,” Killeen retorted, and let his sword slide off hers, ducking around and behind him.

 

Cullen spun fast to face her and they closed with each other again. “One of us has to lose.”

 

“And then _they_ all see that one us _can_ lose,” Killeen said. She tried for another head-butt but he was wise to it now.

 

“So?”

 

“Give me three feet clearance.”

 

She set her feet and heaved, and he gave way, stepping back. Killeen did the same, lowering her sword. “All right, Commander, you win,” she said loudly and clearly. “You clearly _are_ getting your ashes hauled.” A beat, as his cheeks flamed red. “Otherwise your right arm would be a lot stronger.” A single, shocked guffaw from the onlookers. Killeen made a fist, posed like a strongman in a travelling fair. “Like mine, for example.”

 

And then they were all laughing, Cullen included, laughing hard enough to let his sword tip drift to the ground. Killeen held the pose a moment longer, turning on the spot as if to let them all admire the size of her bicep, and then let her arm drop. “All right, you lot, don’t think I’ll forget how little faith you had in me, clean your gear, get some lunch, back here in forty, that should give you time to work on your _own_ grip if you’re so inclined and can find any privacy in this festering hole. _Move_ it.”

 

They scattered. Killeen worked her left shoulder, grimaced, and went to collect her shield.

 

Cullen collected and racked his own, and then walked away from the training ground to a clear patch of snow. Killeen joined him as he scooped up a handful and pressed it to his face.

 

“Let me see,” she said.

 

He took his hand away. “Broken?”

 

“Nah, you’re still pretty.”

 

“And you’re still insubordinate.” He put the snow back to his nose.

 

“Yeah.” She worked her shoulder again. “Sorry about that. It is my job, though, you know.”

 

“To save my soldiers from me?”

 

 _To save you from yourself_ , she thought, but only shrugged, and winced at the pain the movement brought. “Something like that.”

 

“Well,” Cullen said, changing the snow for a fresh handful. “Thanks.”

 

“So what happened?” Killeen asked.

 

He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. “She’s gone to Redcliffe Castle. To ask the Magister for the mages.”

 

“It’s a trap,” Killeen said flatly.

 

“It is. She knows it is. She’s going to spring it.”

 

“You spring traps by standing well back and using a long stick,” Killeen said. “Not by sticking your head in them.”

 

“I know.”

 

“And what about the Templars?”

 

“I _know_.” He sighed. “It’s only natural, that she wouldn’t trust them, after … everything that’s happened. Kirkwall, the abuses there, the Rite of Annulment being used in so many places once the Rebellion started … how can a mage trust a Templar now, after all that?”

 

Killeen looked up at him, his eyes sad now instead of cold, and brought up the idea of _friend_ , of _good friend_ , like a shield between what she felt and what she was about to say. “She trusts you, Cullen.”

 

“If she did _that_ , she wouldn’t have gone to Redcliffe Castle.”

 

“Do you trust _me_?”

 

The question startled him. “Of course!”

 

“And you remember how you said you were leaving Kirkwall and heading off to Haven? And I said it was the stupidest idea I’d ever heard and you should on no account consider it for an instant and two days later we were both on that Maker-forsaken boat?”

 

He grinned. “I remember you hanging over the side and cursing until the _sailors_ blushed.”

 

“And I remember you trying to piss off the bow without checking the direction of the wind, too,” Killeen said, “but let’s not dwell on details. What I _mean_ is, you trusted me and then went and did the opposite of what I said you should.” It hurt, despite the shield, the way the blows he’d rained on her earlier had jarred her whole body, but she said it anyway. “She _trusts_ you. She’s just being an idiot. It happens, even to Heralds.”

 

“She’ll still be a mage. And I’ll still be —”

 

Another blow, on the same place the others had already bruised. “An _ex_ -Templar.”

 

Cullen let the handful of snow drop. “Still bleeding?”

 

Killeen studied his face, for longer than she needed to, because here was an excuse to look her fill _and Maker knows, I deserve it after what a **good** bloody **friend** I’m being_. The hint of blond stubble on his cheeks, slightly darker than the gold of his hair; the fine scar that cut up through his beautiful lip; the warm amber of his eyes.

 

“No,” she said at last. “No, you’re —” _Gorgeous. Glorious_. “Fine.”

 

He smiled down at her, and her heart stopped, stammered, started beating again with a painful little limp. “You have a hard head.”

 

 _I wish I had a hard heart._ “And you’re a hard-arse. Also, an idiot. _Talk_ to her. Tell her how you feel.”

 

“No.” He shook his head and started back toward the tents. “That would be …”

 

Killeen followed. “If you say _inappropriate_ I _will_ break your nose.”

 

His voice was almost inaudible. “I’ve got nothing to offer her.”

 

That he could think, that the Herald could have let him think, that he was _nothing_ , was almost more than Killeen could stand. _I will kick her pert little Andraste blessed backside from here to Denerim if she doesn’t treat him right, and just let her **try** any of those fancy magic tricks of hers on **me**._

 

She caught his arm, forced him to stop and face her. “Cullen. She could be dead tomorrow. _You_ could be dead tomorrow. There’s a hole in the sky leading straight to the Fade. The world is, most probably, _ending_. Do you really think the Herald is going to care whether you’re going to inherit some mouldy pile of stone in Armpit, North Crestwood in the future we’re probably not going to live long enough to see?”

 

He sighed. “No. She’s not … she’s not like that, anyway.”

 

“Then _tell_ her, Cullen. At least hint a little. Pick her some flowers.”

 

His eyes widened. “I can’t be seen picking flowers! I’m the Commander of the Inquisition.”

 

 _Blow upon blow upon bruise over bruise._ “Fine. _I’ll_ pick the flowers. You’ll give them to her. _Or_ —” She let go of his arm, jabbed one finger at his chest. “Or I’ll take that cloak while you’re sleeping and _burn_ it, don’t think I won’t.”

 

Cullen laughed. “All right. For the sake of my sartorial dignity, if nothing else.”

 

Killeen started walking toward the tents again, tossing back over her shoulder as he followed: “If you think that monstrosity adds to your dignity, then let me be the first to inform you how mistaken you are.”

 

He caught up with her. “Jealousy does not become you.”

 

 _And how well I know it._ Any reply caught in her throat.

 

“Kill.” Cullen touched her shoulder. “You’re a good friend. Better than I deserve.”

 

The shield splintered. The blow went straight to her heart.


	7. Hand in Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen meets Dorian, and the Herald saves the day. Again.

Killeen was picking flowers when the mages arrived.

 

It was not an easy task, in the Frostback Mountains. She’d been slipping and sliding and scrambling up and down the hills outside Haven for several hours, trying to find something alive that wasn’t the ubiquitous, hardy elfroot, and only had a tiny handful of wildflowers by the time she trudged back to the gates.

 

To find the whole town boiling like an ant’s nest. Mages everywhere, on the loose, and everyone else walking around very quiet and careful and desperately hoping not to be incinerated on the spot or turned into a toad.

 

“They’re going to do it!” she heard someone whisper. “They’re going to close the Breach! Tonight!”

 

“Maker be praised,” another voice answered.

 

Killeen blinked down at the little bunch of flowers she still carried. _This could all be over tomorrow._

 

_Well, aside from bands of rogue Templars and apostate mages wandering the countryside, not to mention bandits and other assorted lowlifes, and stray left-over demons, and …_

 

Still. The Breach was their biggest, most pressing problem. If the Herald could deal with that, everything else would become manageable.

 

_Cullen will be in the war room,_ she thought, _planning the assault with … them._

 

_And likely nobody’s in the mood for flowers, right at the moment._

 

She made her way back to the tent she shared with Cullen, found an empty bottle and filled it with water, then carefully set the flowers in it, making sure they were neither too close nor too far from the brazier. _Although, if something goes wrong, we’ll probably all be dead, and if it all goes right, I doubt the Commander is going to need a bunch of flowers to get her in the mood._

 

_At least she’s important enough to have her own room. I don’t much fancy the idea of tactfully making myself scarce and then spending hours freezing my fundament while they …_

 

“Well, hello!” A rounded, melodious voice broke in to her thoughts and Killeen looked up to see a tall, muscular man framed in the entrance to the tent. His elegant outfit showed off a great deal too much coffee coloured skin for this weather, his neat moustache was precisely curled, and he was somehow managing to swagger while standing still. “Are those for me? Do say yes, there’s been a decided lack of welcome since I arrived.”

 

“I, ah — this is the Commander’s tent.” Killeen got to her feet. “You can’t be in here.”

 

He ignored her, sauntering in. “That strapping young Templar? How _delicious_. And you’re leaving him flowers? Lovely gesture.”

 

“I’m not — that is, they’re not _for_ him. They’re _from_ him.”

 

“Oh, well done _you_.” He sat down on Cullen’s cot, bounced slightly, and grimaced. “Though you must both be quite athletic, given the restrictions of the environment.”

 

Killeen felt her face flame. “They’re not for _me_. Excuse me, _who_ are you?”

 

“Oh, forgive me.” He rose to his feet gracefully, captured her hand and bent over it in a courtly bow. “Dorian of House Pavus, most recently of Minrathous. Delighted to make your acquaintance, Lady …”

 

“Killeen.”

 

“Lady Killeen.”

 

Feeling persistently wrong-footed, as if she was trying to spar on a moving mill-wheel, Killeen shook her head. “Not _Lady_. Lieutenant, if you need to be fancy.”

 

“Ah, a woman of substance as well as style. Even better!” He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose you have anything to drink, do you? I’ve just fought my way through the kind of future you really don’t want to live to see, ridden like the wind through some of the coldest, dampest countryside it’s ever been my misfortune to encounter and then been greeted by nothing better than suspicion, mistrust and _barely_ disguised hostility. A drink would be _very_ welcome.”

 

“I don’t even know who you are!” Killeen snapped.

 

“My dear girl, I just told you. I know soldiers get hit very often on the head, but if your memory is _that_ bad you really should get it looked at.” Dorian settled back down on Cullen’s cot, hands behind his head, feet resting carelessly on the Commander’s desk. “Although it might well be a blessing to be able to forget _certain_ things without benefit of alcohol. Speaking of which, you were about to provide me with some.”

 

Killeen picked up his feet and dumped them unceremoniously back to the floor. “I really don’t think I was, Pavus.”

 

He was not discomposed. “You couldn’t think again, could you?” he wheedled, fluttering his eyelashes. “Just for me?”

 

She was weighing up the best way to throw him out of the tent bodily with minimal disturbance to the furniture when she heard the tent flap again.

 

“Ah, Pavus,” Cullen said. “You found it.”

 

“Indeed. The lovely Lieutenant was about to offer me some refreshment.”

 

“I’d prefer you sober,” Cullen said. “Who knows what’s going to happen up in the Temple tonight?”

 

“So it’s true, it’s tonight?” Dorian asked.

 

Killeen edged toward the entrance of the tent, and Cullen caught the movement. He waved a hand. “Stay, Kill, you should hear this too.”

 

“ _Kill_ ,” Dorian said, and rolled his eyes. “The Ferelden ability to take a perfectly lovely name for a perfectly lovely woman and turn it into a verb is an abominable trait of your people. Why, you might as well call me _Door_.”

 

His mockery made Killeen’s cheeks burn. “If you ever face my sword,” she said evenly, “you’ll understand. Briefly.”

 

Dorian threw back his head and laughed. “ _Touche_ , my lovely Lady Lieutenant, touche. But I’m afraid we may have problems that even _your_ sword can’t solve.”

 

Killeen listened as Dorian told the story of his trip into a possible future with the Herald. From the questions Cullen asked, he’d heard at least the outlines of the story before, but now he wanted details: every word, every hint, every possible clue to what was going to happen and how to stop it.

 

As light and playful as Dorian’s tone was, Killeen could tell the memories were not pleasant ones. _And no wonder._

 

_If we don’t stop this, it really will be the end of the world._

 

“What is this ‘Elder one’?” Killeen asked.

 

“No idea,” Dorian said promptly. “We really weren’t keen to hang around and meet him, as I’m sure you can appreciate.”

 

“If he’s behind the Breach, we’ve heard him, if not seen him,” Cullen said. “Lady Cassandra said that the rift up at the Temple contained some sort of echo, the voices of the Divine and the Herald and another.”

 

“If he’s a man, he can be killed,” Killeen said. “If he’s darkspawn, he can be killed. Even if he’s an archdemon, he can be killed. The Herald found her own pet Warden.”

 

“And if he’s worse?” Dorian asked soberly.

 

Killeen was startled. “Maker’s balls, what’s worse than archdemons?” She saw Cullen wince at her language. “Sorry. But honestly, worse than archdemons?” She shook her head.

 

“We only have one Warden,” Cullen pointed out.

 

“A stunning lack of redundancy planning,” Dorian said.

 

“Then we find the others. Or get Warden Blackwall to tell us how to make more. I mean, there are _hundreds_ , right, or were before they disappeared? So it’s not like kings. We can make an _army_ of Wardens if this Elder One is an archdemon.”

 

“You’re remarkably insouciant,” Dorian said. “That’s usually _my_ job, and I ought to be miffed, but it’s really quite charming.”

 

Cullen chuckled. “Kill’s solutions to most problems is to stick a sword in them.”

 

Normally, having him tease her in front of other people, even strangers, wouldn’t have bothered her. But here, tonight, with Dorian making fun of her looks and her Commander as good as calling her _simple_ … shame and anger made a hot lump in her stomach. She stood abruptly. “Yes, well,” she said, “in my experience they stop being problems shortly thereafter. If they really are going to try and close the breach tonight, we need to be ready for whatever happens if it goes wrong. I’ll be out on the lines, ser, if you need me for anything else.”

 

Without waiting for his answer, she left.

 

Taking the long way around gave her time to burn off her irrational fury with the both of them. She was calm and collected by the time Cullen joined her, giving their troops the once-over to satisfy himself everything was in order. Not, she knew very well, that he didn’t trust her: it was the one sign he ever gave of nerves.

 

“It’ll go fine,” she muttered to him as they walked side-by-side along the ranks. “ _She’ll_ be fine.”

 

Cullen rubbed the back of his neck. “We don’t know how it will affect her.”

 

“It’s just a really, really big rift, isn’t it? And she’s closed plenty of those, without any ill-effect after that first one.”

 

“It’s too soon. After what she must have been through, in that future she and Pavus saw … no-one could be unaffected by that. Let alone … she’s not like you, Kill. She’s been in a Circle all her life. She’s … _sensitive_.”

 

_Unlike me, tough as old boot-leather,_ Killeen thought. _The least likely candidate imaginable for the romantic fantasies of knights with white horses._

 

“She’s strong,” she said. “She’s had to be, to get this far. She’s proven she’s brave. And no matter how bad things were at Redcliffe Castle, she obviously kept her head well enough to get herself and Pavus back. She’ll be fine.”

 

“I’d be happier if it was a little bit _easier_ on her,” Cullen said. They reached the end of the ranks and stood, staring up at the Breach. “They’ll be nearly up there now.”

 

“I’d like it if it was a little bit easier on all of us,” Killeen said, and he laughed quietly. “Especially me. Hey, can we save the world somewhere _warm_ after this?”

 

“After this …” Cullen murmured, eyes on the sky. “I can’t even start to imagine what comes after this.”

 

Not that long ago, Killeen would have replied, _we save the world and go home_ , but that was no longer going to happen.

 

She couldn’t bring herself to say _We save the world and go our separate ways_.

 

“Burn that bridge when we cross it,” she said instead. “Look! Is that it, do you think?”

 

They both stared upwards. The spark of light Killeen had glimpsed became a beam, lancing up to the heart of the Breach. She held her breath. The beam strengthened, brightened, wavered and grew stronger again …

 

And then, suddenly, the gaping hole in the sky was gone.

 

Killeen took a deep breath, and realised that at some time in the past few moments she’d taken hold of Cullen’s hand, and was clinging to it like a child afraid of losing its mother in the market. Flushing, she started to pull away, but he tightened his own grip on her fingers and turned to look down at her.

 

“She did it.” His voice was barely above a whisper, his face luminous with awe and hope and love. “She did it. It’s gone.”

 

“Yes,” Killeen said. “She did it.”

 

Unexpectedly, he pulled her to him, wrapping her in a hug of celebration and relief. Over his shoulder, Killeen could see their troops embracing each other as well, pounding each other on the back, whooping and yelling.

 

She closed her eyes and hugged him back, face pressed to the absurd collar of his cloak, breathing in the smell of smoke and sweat and the hair pomade he didn’t think anyone knew he used, of metal polish and lamp-oil and _Cullen_ , held him with all the strength in her arms and felt his own arms strong and sure around her.

 

Counted slowly to five.

 

Let him go.

 


	8. Neck And Neck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Herald, once more, saves the day.

Haven was half-hysterical with relief and joy.

 

The Herald leaned on the fence and watched the dancing.

 

Killeen nursed a cup of ale and watched the Herald. She didn’t know where Cullen was, but odds were good he’d turn up in the vicinity of the Herald sooner or later.

 

She didn’t want to _speak_ to him. There was nothing, really, to be said, not that wouldn’t lead to things that _couldn’t_ be said.

 

_I’m leaving._

 

_I’m leaving, because the hole in the sky is fixed, and …_

 

_And because when I thought being your friend would be enough, I didn’t expect there to be anyone else who would be **more**._

 

_I’m leaving because if it wasn’t for this ‘Elder One’ I might very well have hoped the Herald would **die** closing the Breach, and you love her, and if I love you I can’t want that kind of pain for you._

 

_I’m leaving. Because …_

 

_Because it turns out that when I swore to myself I would be what you need me to be, no matter how much or how little, no matter what, I really meant, until it gets difficult and then I’m off like a rat off a sinking ship._

 

No. She didn’t want to _speak_ to Cullen, just to see him, one more time, see him looking happy and relieved and hopeful of the future in a way that she had never seen before, not since the day she’d met him.

 

And then she’d go.

 

She’d be miles and miles away before he missed her.

 

_Miles and miles and miles and miles …_

 

A figure approached the Herald, and Killeen craned her neck, but it was just Lady Cassandra. Perhaps Cullen was waiting for a more private moment.

 

_I’ll finish this cup,_ Killeen said, and then go. _Whether I’ve seen him or not._

 

She was packed. She had the horse she’d ridden in on, which was legitimately hers and not the Inquisition. There was nothing delaying her.

 

_I’ll just finish this cup._

 

And right then, the alarm bell began to toll.

 

Killeen was on her feet, cup rolling forgotten on the ground, slinging her sword-belt around her waist, before her mind had even registered what it was she was hearing. She pelted for the gates, the Lady Cassandra and the Herald just ahead of her.

 

Cullen’s voice rose above the hubbub of confused voices. “Forces approaching! To arms!”

 

Killeen made a beeline for him, met his eyes as he scanned the crowd and at the jerk of his chin toward the soldiers trying to get themselves into some sort of order, changed direction. She was tightening shoulder-straps and dispensing words of encouragement as, with half her attention, she heard Cullen saying something about _a massive force._ Lady Montilyet asked about their banners. _None_ , Cullen answered.

 

A booming at the gates. A voice outside. The Herald moved to open them and Cullen moved with her, sword out.

 

Dead Templars, and a strange, skinny boy, telling them his name is _Cole_ and talking about the Elder One. An outflung arm, pointing, and against the skyline …

 

“Oh, shit.” said a voice from around the level of Killeen’s waist. “That’s not possible. Unless there’s two of them.”

 

She looked down at Varric Tethras, back up at the monstrous silhouette. “Two of what?”

 

“You really don’t want to know, Killer, you really don’t want to know.”

 

Then Cullen’s sword was raised and his voice rang out. “Inquisition, with the Herald, for your lives, for all of us!”

 

At the front of the small group of soldiers who were battle-ready despite the general celebrations, Killeen raised her shield and sword and charged.

 

_Templars_. Faster and stronger than any Killeen had ever faced, though, a strange red glow in their eyes, and with them …

 

_What the fuck are **those**?_

 

Strong and fast and trying to kill them all, was what they were, half-human, half red crystal, fighting alongside the Templars. Killeen got a nasty surprise when one of them flung out its hand and a spray of crystal shards arced towards her.

 

She caught them on her shield and the force flung her backwards. Scrambling to her feet she found her shield half scored through.

 

“Don’t it touch you!” Varric yelled at her. “That stuff is bad news!”

 

After she saw what it did to the face and neck of a soldier who didn’t get his shield up in time, Killeen had to agree.

 

If it hadn’t been for the Herald, and those who fought by her side — Varric here, there, and everywhere on the battlefield, crossbow firing with a regular _thwap_ , the Iron Bull cleaving Templars in half with single blows, and Lady Vivienne firing bolts of ice with an elegant swish of her skirts — they would have had no hope. As it was, by the time the trebuchet was ready to fire, half her company were wounded and three were dead.

 

“The other trebuchet!” someone shouted, and Killeen gathered herself for a hard run, another impossibly hard fight.

 

Someone grabbed her arm, and Killeen swung around, was surprised to find herself staring at the Herald.

 

“Stay here,” the Herald ordered. “Guard the crew. We’ve got this.”

 

“No,” Killeen said. “Commander’s orders to guard you.”

 

The Herald smiled, and even with blood on her face her smile was pretty. “We’ve been guarding _you_ for the past fifteen minutes. Leave this to us, please. It’ll be easier.”

 

She was right, as sour as the taste of it was. Killeen nodded. “We’ll hold here, ser.”

 

With a nod and another smile, the Herald was gone, running up the path toward Maker knew what new dangers.

 

_Well, shit_ , Killeen thought as she sent the worst of the wounded back into the town and got the rest of her soldiers into order. _If I could fart fireballs I’d take on hordes of monsters on my own as well. Unfortunately, my only skill is poking things with a sharp piece of metal._

 

A cheer went up when the second trebuchet fired and the snow cascaded down the mountainside to bury the approaching army.

 

Then Killeen saw the dragon and knew that a piece of metal swung by an arm with only mortal strength behind it, no matter _how_ sharp it might be, was most definitely not going to be enough.

 

“Inside!” she shouted. “Get in the gates! Move it, move it, move move move!”

 

She counted them past her and brought up the rear, holding her pace down to avoid overtaking the ones limping despite the crawling at the back of her neck and the knowledge that _up there_ was that _thing_ …

 

The gates loomed, and then she was under and through them. Cullen had his shoulder to one, ready to heave it closed if he had to, waiting as long as he could for the last of their people, and Killeen wheeled to throw her weight against the other.

 

Pounding footsteps and the Herald raced through, followed by her companions. Cullen nodded, and Killeen heaved the door shut. Cullen did the same and the heavy bar dropped into place.

 

“The Chantry!” Cullen shouted. “It’s the only building that might hold against … that _beast_.” And then: “At this point, just make them _work_ for it.”

 

Killeen felt cold shock run through her. She had never seen him give up, not even at the gates of the Temple with demons spawning faster than they could be cut down. If _Cullen_ thought there was no way to win this fight …

 

She gripped her sword more tightly. _If Cullen thinks there’s no way to win this fight, then I will go down with my sword in my hand and my face to the enemy, and Maker willing, I’ll stab a few of their ankles too._

 

There were crystal monsters and Templars inside the town now. Cullen leapt forward to engage them, Killeen by his side, the thin remnants of their company making a shield wall to push them back, the push forward. Behind them, she could hear the Iron Bull bellowing a battlecry as the Herald and her companions kept others off their backs.

 

They reached the Chantry, stretching their line outwards, making room for the panicked townspeople to stream through the door. Killeen’s world narrowed to the red-eyed faces in front of her, to the ache in her sword-arm and the burning in her lungs, to Cullen’s shoulder against hers and the rasp of his breath.

 

“Fall back!” he shouted at last. “Through the doors! In good order!”

 

The line contracted again, the soldiers stepping back from it, two by two, turning and racing for the illusory safety of the building. There were ten of them now, eight … six, four …

 

There was Cullen and herself, space behind them, a nightmare in front.

 

“Now!” Cullen said, and they made one hard push forward, heaving the front line of the enemy back, and as one person, turned and ran for the Chantry doors, stride-by-stride, neck and neck.

 

In.

 

Doors shut behind them.

 

Killeen let her sword and shield fall clanging to the stone floor, bent over with hands on knees, coughing and retching for breath. Cullen himself had to pause, panting, and then gathered himself. He touched her shoulder, eyebrow raised in query. _Wounded_? Killeen shook her head, and he nodded and strode on, giving orders, arranging their scanty final defence.

 

The doors opened again, and Killeen heard a stream of obscenity in Varric’s rough voice.

 

“Herald!” Cullen strode toward them. “Our position is not good. That dragon stole back any time that you might have earned us.”

 

The thin little boy from outside the gates raised his head from where he set beside Chancellor Roderick. “I’ve seen an archdemon. I was in the fade, but that’s what it looked like.”

 

_Who gives a fuck what it looks like,_ Killeen thought, and heard Cullen echo her thoughts in more genteel terms. 

 

Then the Herald, ready to die to save Haven, to save the people of Haven. Killeen couldn’t bear to look at Cullen to see the expression on his face at _that_ declaration.

 

But it wouldn’t work, the boy said. “No one else matters, but he’ll crush them, kill them anyway. I don’t like him.”

 

_So glad to be dying to someone for whom I don’t matter,_ Killeen thought sourly. _So glad to be a monster’s afterthought._

 

_**I** don’t like him, either, laddy._

 

Cullen suggested the trebuchets. One last slide, burying Haven. To die by snow and not by fire, taking the enemy with them. Killeen silently approved. It was a soldier’s solution to the impossible situation.

 

And then the pale boy, and the Chancellor, talking of a path.

 

“What about it, Cullen?” the Herald asked. “Will it work?”

 

_I told you she trusts you,_ Killeen thought. _You big bear-clad lummox._

 

_Should have given her the flowers when you had the chance._ Their tent, and everything in it including flowers, was doubtless a trampled mass of cloth and splinters now.

 

“Possibly,” Cullen said. “ _If_ he shows us the path. But what of your escape?”

 

He paused, and in his pause Killeen felt him realise it. _She is going to die to keep you safe._

 

She could neither look at him nor continue to listen to him. Instead, she went down the long aisle of the Chantry to the little knot of her soldiers. “Volunteers to load trebuchets,” she said, and felt a hot lump in her throat when every hand went up. The odds of making it through the burning ruins of the town, past Templars and monsters, were not very good; the odds of making it back, worse. None of the men and women with her were the Chosen of Andraste, none of them had any skill or protection other than than granted by their own flesh and blood and will, but not a one of them hesitated any more than the Herald had.

 

She let them back towards the doors, caught Cullen’s eye and made the cupped-hand gesture that was battlefield shorthand for trebuchets.

 

He was composed, but she knew him well enough to see the pain he felt at the Herald’s peril, the fear for her and for what would come, in the set of his mouth and his narrowed eyes.

 

“Find a way,” he said, looking at Killeen but speaking to the Herald, not an order but a plea.

 

Killeen turned and led her squad out.

 

“Don’t engage unless you have to,” she ordered them. “Leave that to the Herald. Just get to the trebuchets, get them loaded, get back to the Chantry, that’s it, that’s the entire job.”

 

They ran, dodging dark forms looming in the flickering light of burning buildings, cut down two Templars who couldn’t be avoided, hurtled down the stairs and along the path. Behind them the hiss of ice-spells and the sizzle of lightning told them the Herald was following, clearing her own path, keeping the enemy off their backs.

 

Rocks into the basket, _one, two, three_ … Killeen was proud of how quickly and efficiently her people worked, remembering the endless drills she’d put them through, no hesitation, no confusion.

 

Movement in the corner of her eye, and she spun, drawing her sword. They were coming, too many, too fast —

 

Lighting seared her vision, arcing from Templar to Templar, leaving behind the smell of seared flesh.

 

The Herald leapt up to the platform. “Go!” she said. “It’s clear behind us! Go, I’ll get it aimed!”

 

Killeen nodded. “Maker be with you,” she gasped, jumped down, and ran.

 

The Herald was as good as her word — they met no-one living on the way back to the Chantry. Apart from one scout left to show them the way the others had gone, the building was empty.

 

Outside, the dragon roared.

 

Killeen counted her people through the door, making sure the had everyone, seized a torch from the nearest sconce, and followed.


	9. Knee Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it snows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I never played that type of Hawke, I didn’t know that one of Varric’s possible nicknames for him/her is ‘Killer’. Varric using it for Killeen is not supposed to imply any connection or resemblance between her and the Champion.

 

 

Killeen waded through the knee-deep snow.

 

The path they were on might have been quite a pleasant hike, on a summer’s day.

 

In a blizzard, though …

 

She paused, looking around through the veils of blowing snow, counting the heads of the little group of civilians she was responsible for. Cullen had called the soldiers and scouts aside at the beginning of the trek, given them each the task of shepherding some of the townspeople. _They’re not in shape for this_ , he’d said. _Keep them on their feet, keep them moving, don’t let anyone fall behind._

 

_We’re not losing anyone else._

 

That had been moments after he’d given the order that sent the scout’s flaming arrow arcing high into the sky, moments after a wall of snow and ice and rocks had buried Haven and with it, the Herald, and yet apart from a certain roughness in his voice, Cullen had given no sign of what he had to be feeling, just turned his attention to the next job his responsibility set him.

 

And they had set out.

 

It would have been impossible without the mages. Firespells melted the snow ahead, leaving them trudging over steaming mud, difficult footing but not as bad as the deepening snow. Staffs held high cast more light than sputtering torches. Spells of warmth and protection wrapped the weakest.

 

But even mages had limits, and now they were having to husband their strength.

 

Killeen accounted for every one of her charges, turned her face into the wind again, and started forward once more.

 

Far ahead of her, Cullen ploughed onward, taking his turn at breaking a path, torch held high. Killeen could hardly imagine how he could keep going, how he could bear to keep going, let alone how he could walk, head high, giving the straggling refugees hope through his confident bearing and steady pace.

 

_If it was me_ , she thought, _if it was **him** back there, if he feels for her what I feel for him …_

 

_I would lie down and let the snow cover me and leave the fate of the world in the Maker’s capable hands._

 

And yet Cullen kept going.

 

A pale shape, drifting beside her, the heavy snow the merest dusting on his wide-brimmed hat. _Cole_ , Killeen remembered he was called. “He wanted to keep her with him.” A light, colourless voice, as pale as the strange boy himself. “Where she’d be safe, but he knew she’d hate him for it, knew nothing would keep her from what had to be done. He never truly knew how much he loved her, what love could feel like, until that moment, watching her running into danger, running away from him.”

 

“Peachy,” Killeen said.

 

“He has to trust she’s behind him, somewhere, that she follows. He can’t look back, can’t show doubt. All those eyes on his back, trusting, following, leaning. He knows how strong she is.”

 

“ _Enough_ , please.”

 

The boy frowned, drifting along beside her. “That should have helped. Why didn’t it help?”

 

“You know what would help, Cole?” Killeen said. “If you’re going to listen to people’s private thoughts? If you want to help?”

 

“I want to help,” he said.

 

“Then listen out for people in trouble. Falling behind. Find them and let someone know. Someone still strong enough to help.”

 

“Yes,” Cole said. “I can do that.”

 

Between one breath and another, he was gone.

 

Behind her, voices lifted in shouts — not of alarm, Killeen judged. She turned to look back and saw a huge shape looming up at the rear of the column, horns making him unmistakable. They made it.

 

_Of course they did, she’s the Herald._

 

But strain her eyes as she could, she couldn’t see a fourth figure behind the Iron Bull, the squat shape of Varric beside him, Lady Vivienne’s dark hands and face seeming disembodied as her white robe blended in with the snow.

 

Cullen charged past her. “Kill, with me,” he tossed over his shoulder.

 

Killeen grabbed the refugee nearest her by the shoulder. “Keep them together until I get back,” she ordered, and followed her Commander.

 

The Iron Bull met Cullen’s eyes as they approached, and then shook his head and looked down.

 

“She might still have made it, Curly,” Varric said. “She got the trebuchet away. Stranger things have happened, and not just in my books.”

 

Cullen nodded, but his shoulders were slumped.

 

“What are we going to do?” Killeen asked softly.

 

He straightened. “Keep going. Find shelter. Get these people safe.”

 

“Yes, ser,” Killeen said. “I need to get back to my group, if that’s …”

 

Cullen touched her arm, briefly, little more than a reflex. “Go.”

 

“Yes, ser,” Killeen said again, and slogged off back up the column.

 

Ahead of her, a woman carrying a child stumbled and fell to her knees. Killeen caught her up and bent to lift the little girl from her arms. Cradling the small form in one arm, she took the woman’s shoulder with her free hand. “Come on. Get up. Not much further and then you can rest.”

 

The woman tried to get her feet under her, sank back. “I can’t. Leave me.”

 

“Nope,” Killeen said. “Your daughter will need a mother when we get to the end of this. You don’t get to give up.”

 

“Just an hour,” the woman begged, eyes closing. “I can’t go on without rest. I can’t! Just an hour, then I’ll follow.”

 

Killeen paused. “Fine,” she said. “One hour. I’ll wait with you so you don’t oversleep.”

 

The woman’s eyes drifted shut. Killeen counted five, slowly, and then took the woman’s upper arm in a firm grip and shook her. “That’s your hour. Come on, time to go.” She hauled the blinking woman to her feet. “Come on. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.”

 

She got them back up the column to the group they belonged to and found it floundering, the young scout entrusted with it half-delirious with cold and a shoulder wound starting to fester. Killeen combined them with her own band of charges, assigned two of the stronger townspeople to help the scout walk, turned the staggering mother over to a third, hoisted the little girl higher on her hip, and trudged on.

 

And on.

 

And on.

 

The very last of combat adrenaline faded to nothing, and bone-deep weariness took its place. She lost her footing, staggered a second, and found it again. Years of experience had taught her that it took time to calm down after combat — that’s why cities were sacked with such abandon after a siege — but when the nerves finally stilled and the muscles stopped quivering, when the heart slowed to normal and the mind stopped screaming _kill or die, kill or die …_

 

Then, raising a hand with a fork in it became too much effort. Pushing away from the mess-table and walking to one’s own room became too much effort. Sometimes, even pushing the plate away before laying one’s head on the table and succumbing to sleep was too much effort.

 

_Not yet. Not yet. Not over yet. Not yet._

 

She went to her knees, got up, went down again two steps later. _So tired. So tired …_

 

“ _Up_ , Kill.” Cullen bent over her, taking the child from her arms as Killeen herself had done, unknown hours ago. She braced herself, got one foot under her, got the other, staggered to her feet. “Can you walk?”

 

“Yes,” she said, only possible answer to anything he ever asked of her. “Just … stand there a minute, will you?”

 

“Why?” Cullen asked.

 

“You make an excellent windbreak.” Then she remembered just how awful he must feel right now, and could have bitten out her tongue.

 

“I’m glad I can be of _some_ use to the people of Haven,” Cullen said. With the little girl’s blond head resting against his shoulder, he looked almost like any father carrying an overtired offspring home at the end of the day — except for the snow.

 

And the shadows in his eyes.

 

“Everyone here is following you,” Killeen said. “I know you’d rather have been out there, fighting.” _With her._ “But armies, even armies of civilians, need someone to follow, Cullen, you know that’s the truth. And you’re the best person here for that to be, better than anyone but the Herald herself.”

 

His mouth turned down. “Your faith is misplaced.”

 

Killeen slogged forward a step, grabbed his arm, got him turned around and moving in the right direction. “Nothing to do with faith,” she panted.

 

“Oh?”

 

“Apart from the Iron Bull — and you’ll never get a herd of panicked refugees to follow a Qunari — you’re the tallest.”

 

“That’s it?” he gasped against the wind. “The full extent of my leadership qualifications?”

 

“Oh no,” Killeen assured him. “You also have extremely visible hair.”

 

“I think there might be _one_ or two —” Cullen started, and then stopped. “All right. Consider your motivational talk a success.”

 

“Oh, good.” Killeen almost lost her footing and had to stop a second, head down against the howling wind. “Because after the hair I got nothing.”

 

“The scouts say that there’s shelter around the next bend,” Cullen said. “It really isn’t much further now.”

 

“Terrific,” Killeen said, starting forward. “Because an Elder One, a dragon, and a blizzard is at least one too many problems.”

 

Suddenly, the pale boy in the hat was there, skimming over the snow as if it was no obstacle to him. “She’s warm,” he said urgently.

 

“Maker!” Cullen shied away, turning protectively to keep his shoulder between the little girl he cradled to his chest and the apparition.

 

“I’m glad someone’s warm,” Killeen said.

 

“No,” Cole said. “ _No_. She’s in the snow, the warm snow. She’s trying to keep going but she’s tired. She’s very, very tired. And it’s hard to follow.”

 

“Oh, shit,” Killeen said. “Cullen, we’re losing someone. Someone’s fallen behind.”

 

“ _No_ ,” he said, steel in his voice. “We will _not_ lose anyone else.”

 

“Cole, can you tell where she is?” Killeen asked.

 

“Yes.” He flung out an arm and pointed.

 

“How did she get over _there_?” Cullen asked in exasperation. “She must have lost the rest of the group an hour ago. Aren’t people doing their head-counts? Kill, can you —”

 

“She didn’t wander,” Cole said. “She’s following. From a different place.”

 

For a moment they were both silent. Killeen watched hope bloom in Cullen’s face.

 

She held out her arms. “Give the kid to me,” she said. “And go find the Herald.”

 

Even in that moment, as frantic as he had to be to be _moving_ , to _go_ , to _find her_ , Cullen was gentle as he settled the sleeping child in Killeen’s arms, taking the time to pull a fold of Killeen’s cloak across the little girl’s head.

 

Then he nodded, turned, and ploughed away through the snow.

 

“Cole,” Killeen said, “can you —”

 

“Go with him, make sure he doesn’t go off alone, help him, keep him safe, find what mends him, so he didn’t fail? Yes. He wants you to —”

 

“Get everyone around the bend, count heads, get the tents up, fires lit, food cooking.”

 

“Yes.” He regarded her intensely. “Can you do what I do? Hear people thinking?”

 

“Only Cullen.”

 

“He is _very_ loud,” Cole said, and was gone.

 

The relief when they rounded the spur of rock and the wind abruptly dropped to nothing was so intense that Killeen laughed aloud, stopped herself when she felt tears freezing on her cheeks. Exhausted refugees stumbled to a stop, some dropping full-length where they stood. Others stood, staring blankly, pushed beyond all human limits by shock and fear and exhaustion.

 

Killeen stumbled between them, arms aching with the weight of the child but unable to find her mother or anywhere warm to set her down. She ordered and received head-counts, tallying each off against her memory of the assignments Cullen had given at the beginning of their journey. The strongest were sent off in small groups to find firewood with strict instructions to stay together and stay in sight of the camp. The next strongest, she tasked with pulling what tents they had off travois and druffalo packs and getting them set up.

 

“Can I help?” a raspy voice said from around her waist. _Varric_.

 

“Does that contraption of yours kill wildlife?” Killeen asked, looking down at the dwarf. “Because we’ll need all the druffalo, I don’t want to have to slaughter them.”

 

“Also, the kiddies would cry,” Varric said. “On it, Killer.” He raised his voice. “Hey, Buttercup! Got a job for you and your arrows.”

 

“Well, good,” a blond elf replied, wearily getting to her feet, “because something I can actually shoot? _Loads_ better than fucking _dragons_.”

 

It took longer than Killeen would have believed possible, at least, longer than she would have believed it possible for her to still be on her feet and tracking her surroundings, but eventually they had shelter, they had heat, they had food, they had every single one of the refugees accounted for.

 

_Except Cullen, and Cassandra, and the ones who went with them._

 

She tried not to think of how easy it would be for them — for _him_ — exhausted as they were, to lose their way, to slip off a treacherous edge or, if they didn’t find the Herald — _or didn’t find her in time_ — to give in to cold and fatigue and despair and just lie down, as so many of the refugees had tried to do, thinking _just for a minute, I’ll just rest for a minute …_

 

She woke the little girl long enough to get some food in her, forced a few bites of stew down her own throat, tasting only dust and ashes, then forced herself to her feet again, the child still in her arms. There were tents, now, shelter, but somehow it seemed wrong to set her down in one of them, to leave her alone. Carrying her, Killeen paced back and forth between the fire and the guardpost closest to the route they’d taken to get here, straining her eyes against the snow, her ears against the wind.

 

“There!” the cry went up, and out of the dark came a little group of stumbling figures. Killeen’s eyes went straight away to the tallest of them, blond hair crowned now with snow, strangely slimmer without the great weight of his cloak around his shoulder but instead bundled in his arms, wrapped around —

 

“We’ve found her!” Lady Cassandra called in triumph.

 

Carrying the Herald carefully in his arms, Cullen strode into the camp. Lady Montilyet hurried to direct him to their makeshift infirmary, and he turned in that direction, sweeping the crowd with a single glance.

 

His gaze met Killeen’s, face bright with renewed hope and happiness, and he smiled.

 

She forced herself to smile back, but before she could be sure he’d seen it, he was inside the tent and …

 

_Gone_.


	10. Hand To Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mother Giselle sings.

Killeen expected him to emerge from the healer’s tent almost immediately, expecting reports, but a moment passed, and then another, and then another.

 

 _He can’t bear to leave her_ , she realised. For Commander Cullen to let his responsibilities slip …

 

 _He never truly knew how much he loved her, what love could feel like, until that moment_ , Cole had said.

 

Killeen made the rounds of the camp one more time, legs like lead, heart aching with the effort, and then found a place near enough to a fire to feel some warmth, a pile of supply sacks providing a backrest, and lowered herself down. Arms loosely laced around the child in her lap, she closed her eyes and let herself fall into something that was almost sleep, a warm darkness that held her suspended without dreams, without worry about what the next day would bring, without the memory of the expression on Cullen’s face as he bore the Herald safely home.

 

Some unknown time later, she sensed a familiar presence near her, and opened her eyes to see Cullen looking down at her.

 

His lips quirked. “Quite the picture,” he said softly, as if the tenderness he felt for the Herald was so great it couldn’t help but overflow to include a skinny little stray asleep in a soldier’s arms.

 

“Mercenary with spoils of war?” Killeen said quietly, careful not to wake the child.

 

Cullen sat down beside her, leaned his head back against the pile of sacks with a sigh. “Something like. You can’t find her mother?”

 

Killeen shook her head. “She has to be here _somewhere_ , the count checks out. But I don’t know her name. I can’t even really remember what she looked like.”

 

“The girl will know,” Cullen said. “You can find her in the morning.”

 

“Yes.” Killeen gathered herself. “Commander, we have food for —”

 

He stilled her with a weary gesture. “Anything that needs my attention tonight?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then it can wait for dawn.”

 

_Unheard of._

 

“Cullen,” she said. “No matter how you feel, you can’t let it make you let things slip.”

 

He rolled his head to look at her, amber eyes clearer of shadows as she’d ever seen them, expression as peaceful as if he sat at ease at his own hearth in a time of peace. “You saw to it,” he said, as if that was all the excuse he needed.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well, then,” he said, and smiled, and Killeen knew she couldn’t leave, no matter what the dawn brought, not until the Elder One and his dragon were ended, not until there was no damage that Cullen’s distraction by the Herald could do.

 

No, she would stay, by his side, at his shoulder, picking up the pieces he let fall, guarding his back in combat and out. _Seeing to it._

 

Killeen would have hated him for it, then, except she could never hate Cullen, especially not when he was looking at her with his face open and relaxed, looking at her with that half-smile curling his beautiful mouth and the firelight glancing off the perfect slope of his cheek. She would have hated the Herald, except it would be profoundly ungrateful to hate a woman who saved your life even knowing it might cost her own.

 

She settled for hating the Elder One.

 

“Kill …” Cullen said softly, barely more than a breath.

 

“Mmm?”

 

He hesitated, and then raised voices on the other side of the camp drew his attention. “Stay here. I’ll see what that is.”

 

An argument, is what it was, between the Herald’s advisers. Killeen could tell that much from where she sat. Cullen was drawn into it, his tall form looming over Lady Montilyet and the Spymaster, jabbing his fingers to make a point. The slim form of the Herald emerged from the healer’s tent, limping, paused as the argument fell away into glum silence.

 

Then a voice, soft, clear, true, lifted in song. Mother Giselle, who Killeen had seen in the Chantry, who must have summoned up extraordinary inner strength to haul her ageing bones up the mountain, walked forward to the fire, singing of falling shadows, fleeing hope.

 

Singing of a coming dawn.

 

Another voice joined her, high and soaring. It was the Spymaster, and for the first time Killeen understood why Varric called her _Nightingale_.

 

Keep to the stars, she sang, and from the crowd other voices answered the dawn will come.

 

Hair rose on the back of Killeen’s neck. She shook the shoulder of the little girl sleeping in her lap. “Wake up, kid. Wake up.”

 

“Whassit?” the girl mumbled.

 

“You need to see this, honey.”

 

The child turned and peered across the camp as Killeen saw Cullen close his eyes and raise his voice with the others. _The path is dark_ , he sang, and for an instant Killeen was back in the snow and the wind, trudging forward with her eyes on a tall form, a blond head, leading them all. _The path is dark, look to the sky — for one day soon, the dawn will come_.

Everyone was singing now. Killeen realised even she was, in a husky croak. _Bare your blade, and raise it high. Stand your ground …_

She set the little girl on the ground and rose to her feet, holding the child’s hand. _Bare my blade, you better believe it. Stand my ground, you just watch me._

They were kneeling now, one by one, before the Herald. Heads bowed, fists clenched to chests, vowing loyalty, swearing fealty.

Because the night might be long and the path might be dark …

But the dawn always came.

Beside her, the little girl dropped her knees, one chubby fist held to her chest, head bowed. As the song died away, Killeen gathered her up again, held her tightly, hand cradling her head, and looked to the Herald, standing slim and straight, chin lifted, accepting their promises, answering it with her silent own.

_Yes._

_Yes, I will lead you to the dawn._

Looked over the Herald’s shoulder to Cullen also watching that slender, upright form, watching her with a look on his face as if the promised dawn rose already in the Herald’s eyes.  


	11. Hand In Glove

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some things are repaired, and others broken.

It was a long, cold, hard walk through the mountains, but the weather stayed clear, and the pace was easier.

 

_And_ , Killeen thought, _we’re **following** the Herald now — not leaving her behind._

 

They were all tired, many injured, always cold, but there was a sense of determination now, even from the townspeople, as if they were an army on a hard, forced march to victory and not a gaggle of terrified refugees fleeing unimaginable disaster. The Herald strode ahead of them, her closest companions and advisers near her.

 

Cullen among them, not wanting to leave her side for even a moment.

 

Back in the ranks, Killeen slogged onward. She had found the little girl’s mother and reunited the pair, finally learned that the mother’s name was Anandra and the little girl was Felandaris, wondered if there was a brother called _Rashvine Nettle_ and stifled a laugh. They walked near her, now, Fel having decided that she and Kill were _bestest friends_. When the girl tired, Anandra and Kill took turns carrying her, as long as they could manage with the heavy packs on their backs. At night, once Kill had made the rounds of the camp, counted heads for the tenth time that day, checked on injuries and received reports, then trudged to the side of the camp where their leaders were to deliver the information to Cullen, the three of them settled around the same fire, huddled together for warmth.

 

From time to time during the days, Cullen would drop back to walk beside them, giving Killeen a chance to brief him on anything that had happened, sometimes even taking a turn to carry Fel. The little girl took a shine to him as well, especially after he hoisted her to his shoulders one day and let her ride, proud as a queen, above the whole cavalcade. Fel would struggle to stay awake each night until Cullen came by, after the evening meal, to crouch by their fire and make one final check with Killeen before sleep.

 

_Tell me a story, Ser Bear_ , Fel begged each time, and Cullen would oblige, spinning a tale of a brave knight called Ser Felandaris and her adventures rescuing various woodland animals from assorted dangers, a story that seemed to have no end and doubtless never would reach an end, given the exhausted child fell asleep in moments, leaning on his shoulder with one fist knotted in the fur of his collar and the other tucked against her heart.

 

Sometimes, untangling Fel’s fingers from his cloak, Cullen glanced at Kill and seemed about to speak, but then he would remember Anandra, and fall silent. Kill wasn’t sure whether to miss the quiet confidences they had used to share or to be relieved there was no opportunities for them here, given that they would doubtless be about the Herald, the brave and beautiful Herald, and what Cullen felt for her.

 

She would have to hear it, sooner or later. She would have to listen, and make the right noises, and tease him just the right enough, because that was what a _friend_ , a _good friend_ , would do.

 

But she couldn’t help but be grateful for this chance to get used to the idea, first.

 

When they straggled across the bridge into Skyhold, Killeen heard gasps of awe and cries of relief all around her.

 

_It **is** impressive_ , she thought, and then, with a soldier’s cursed practicality, _and half-falling down, with who knows how many unsound floors and walls, and chimneys that will need sweeping, and rubble that will need clearing …_

 

_And water to haul and firewood to cut and beasts to stable and …_

 

As Cullen, Lady Montilyet and the Spymaster stood in close conversation, Killeen took one minute to stretch out the knots that her pack had left in her back, and went to round up her troops and get started.

 

She paused, briefly — as they all paused — as the Herald became the Inquisitor, as Cullen stood in the courtyard and rallied them all to follow the woman he loved, she cheered and shouted with the rest … and went back to work.

 

It was a huge relief that Cullen seemed to shake off his distraction, to bring his usual focus to the task of getting Skyhold firstly, safe, and secondly, habitable. The task was so enormous that Killeen was not sure she would have been able to keep track of all the different threads of it if it had been entirely down to her.

 

Fel trailed after her, at first, and Killeen let her — the castle was full of dangers for a small child who might not think to test a floor before walking on it, and Fel _mostly_ understood that when adults were busy with important things, children should stand quietly and not interrupt them. When a room by the gate was cleared out and Adan set up a school there on the Inquisitor’s instructions, Killeen found she missed the little form flitting after her, clutching a scrap of parchment and a twig broken off to resemble Killeen’s own pencil, studiously scrutinising the same walls and staircases and piles of supplies Killeen did.

 

_Fel needs an education, though,_ she thought, crossing the upper courtyard. _An education — and to spend time with her family, not traipsing over this crumbling pile with a soldier who barely has time to make sure she eats lunch._

 

Killeen turned toward the stairs that led to Cullen’s temporary “desk” — a table in the open air — when a familiar, not-entirely-welcome, voice called down from the stairs to the Great Hall: “Hello. Excuse me, you’re Lieutenant Killeen?”

 

Killeen stopped, and looked up at the Herald. _Inquisitor_ , she corrected herself. “Yes, your worship,” she said.

 

The Inquisitor wrinkled her nose in a pretty grimace, and came down the stairs. “If you must be formal, and I suppose you must on duty, then please. Inquisitor is enough.”

 

“Yes, Inquisitor,” Killeen said, _thinking how by the Maker did you know my name, anyway?_

 

As if reading her mind, the Inquisitor said, “Commander Cullen’s spoken of you. I recognised you from his description.”

 

Killeen didn’t want to think of Cullen telling the Inquisitor _she’s the scar-faced one with the broken nose,_ but her treacherous imagination played the words in his familiar, honey-coloured voice. “Oh,” she said.

 

“And we met, at Haven — briefly. I don’t know if you remember.”

 

“I remember. There wasn’t really time for formal introductions, though.”

 

The Inquisitor laughed. “Cullen said you were funny.” _She’s the funny, scar-faced one with the broken nose._

 

Better.

 

Barely.

 

“I was looking for him, actually,” the Inquisitor said, “this place is so huge I keep getting lost. And then I saw you and I thought, ah, _Cullen’s Kill will know where he is to within three feet at all times_. So, do you?”

 

“Yes,” Killeen said, trying to come to terms with the fact that Cullen and the Inquisitor had clearly found an awful lot of time to talk to each other in the days since Haven if they’d run so low of topics as to talk quite so much about _her_. “I’m on my way to report to him, actually. It’s this way.”

 

The Inquisitor fell into step beside her. “I wanted to thank you, for what you did, back at Haven — and after.”

 

Killeen missed a step on the stairs, caught herself, and turned, staring. “What _I_ did?”

 

“I wouldn’t have made it much further if they hadn’t found me,” the Inquisitor said. “And Cullen could never have left the townspeople without someone to step in for him, someone he knew would take care of them, of everything. And before that — I have no _idea_ how to load a trebuchet. Cullen said you didn’t hesitate — didn’t even need to be ordered — just led your people out there.”

 

“I don’t recall you hesitating, either,” Killeen pointed out.

 

“Well, but it was my _fault_ ,” the Inquisitor said.

 

“It was the fault of Corypheus,” Killeen said flatly.

 

“He wouldn’t have —”

 

“ _No_.” Forgetting herself, Killeen took the other woman by the arm. “Do not ever for one moment let yourself imagine that you are in some way to blame for an arse-hole trying to kill you. That’s a shortcut to making yourself useless with second-guessing every move you make. _He_ picked the fight. The only responsibility you have is to _finish_ it.”

 

“Is that the speech you give to all raw recruits?”

 

Killeen felt herself flush, and carefully removed her hand from the Inquisitor’s person. “I’m sorry, your worship. Inquisitor.”

 

“Don’t be,” the Inquisitor said. “I need all the good advice I can get. And Cullen was right about how tough you are, too. He _said_ you were the iron hand in his velvet glove. Oh, I see him.”

 

Killeen looked down the stairs to see Cullen looking up at them. He must have thought himself unobserved, to gaze at the Inquisitor with such intensity, and indeed, as Killeen’s gaze met his he blushed, and turned away, rubbing the back of his neck.

 

“These can wait,” Killeen said, holding up her handful of reports. “Go talk to him.”

 

“Thank you,” the Inquisitor said, and jogged down the stairs, absurdly graceful.

 

Killeen lingered, carefully out of earshot.

 

“You need to move closer if you want to eavesdrop,” a melodious voice drawled behind her.

 

“Hello, Pavus,” Killeen said without turning. “That’s why I’m up _here_.”

 

“A beautiful woman with no curiosity is a crime,” Dorian said, skipping down a step and lounging against the wall beside her. “What’s got your forehead furrowed like that, pray tell? You should go and stick a sword in it immediately, whatever it is. You have lovely skin but no need to tempt wrinkles.”

 

“Just thinking of all the work ahead to make this place what it needs to be,” Killeen said.

 

“You’re not the only one,” Dorian said. He held his hands up before her face. “Look! Scullery-maid hands!”

  
Killeen laughed. For all his posturing, Dorian had worked as hard as anyone and harder than most since they’d arrived, despite his repeated declarations that he was only lending a hand in the hope that eventually Skyhold would have a decent bath-house. She had even grown used to his mockery, given that he seemed to apply it even-handedly to everyone who crossed his path. “What are you doing here? Couldn’t find anyone to peel your grapes?”

 

“No. I don’t suppose you’d be a darling and volunteer? I have a delightful outfit for you and everything.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “It has _feathers_.”

 

“Not a chance,” Killeen said, and grinned when he gave a theatrical pout.

 

“The hardship, the deprivation — who would have thought a fight to the death against darkspawn magisters from the dawn of time would involve _this_ many sacrifices?” He turned to look down the stairs. “Actually I was looking for the Commander. Would you believe I managed to find a chess set? Now all I need is a decent opponent. Under the circumstances, however, I will settle for our dear Commander. At least I’ll have something pretty to look at while I thrash him. I wonder what he and our Inquisitor are saying that has them both so _serious_.”

 

“Darkspawn magister from the dawn of time?” Killeen suggested.

 

Dorian shook his head sadly. “You really must do better, my lovely Lady Lieutenant. You’ll never start a decent rumour at this rate.”

 

Alarmed, Killeen grabbed his arm. “Pavus. No rumours about Cullen and the Inquisitor.”

 

His eyebrows went up. “Why-ever not? The ranks _love_ a bit of romance. It’d be marvellous for morale.”

 

“Maybe, but it wouldn’t be — it wouldn’t be kind. To —” _Him_. “Either of them. All right?”

 

He paused, and Killeen had the uncomfortable feeling that he heard rather more than she said, and then threw up his hands. “Oh, as you like. I’ll have to start one about Varric and Cassandra, instead.”

 

Killeen gaped at him as, with a sunny smile, he bounded down the stairs as the Inquisitor went toward the stables, throwing one arm around Cullen’s shoulders and proposing his chess match.

 

She followed more slowly, and Cullen turned toward her with relief and a remark to Dorian about _too busy, as you can see._

 

“I thought you enjoyed chess,” Killeen said after Dorian had left.

 

Cullen studied the reports, made a mark in the margin of one. “I do. I just can’t help feeling that Pavus … well.”

 

“Has designs upon your virtue?” Killeen suggested. You didn’t live in barracks for years without realising that some men preferred men and some women preferred women, and while Dorian might flirt outrageously with anyone passing, his eyes lingered on men in quite a different way to the way he looked at women, however beautiful.

 

Cullen blushed, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Not to put too fine a point on it, yes.”

 

Killeen glanced around. _No-one in earshot_. “Just tell him your heart belongs to another,” she said, mercilessly crushing the sharp pang it gave her to say it.

 

“Well, that, uh. Seems like it would be a bit _precipitous_. Under current circumstances.” He looked at her, the briefest glance. “Wouldn’t it?”

 

“I think it’s well overdue, frankly, under current circumstances,” Killeen said, and Cullen’s head came up, mouth open in shock.

 

“You - uh, you do?”

 

Killeen sighed. “I have eyes. I saw you, just now.”

 

“You saw me,” Cullen said a little blankly, and then his blush deepened. He rubbed the back of his neck again. “I see.”

 

“You can’t go around looking at a woman like a starving man looks at a ram haunch and expect me not to notice.”

 

He smiled slightly, and shifted uncomfortably. “Foolish to think I could keep a secret from _you_ , I suppose.”

 

“So tell her worshipful Inquisitorialness.”

 

Cullen shook his head. “I’d think I’d rather, uh. She wasn’t aware of how I feel. It’s hardly —”

 

“Say _appropriate_ and I’ll punch you, I swear it,” Killeen said.

 

“There _is_ such a thing as chain of command, Kill,” Cullen said. “And the Inquisition needs both of us.”

 

“Then have a secret affair,” Killeen suggested, instead of what she wanted to say, which was _You’re right. It’d never work. Give up the idea. Get over her._

 

“That sounds so sordid,” Cullen muttered.

 

“ _Private liaison_ , then.”

 

“Well, I, um.” He chewed his lip, glanced at her, glanced away. “I suppose I haven’t wanted to …” Not looking at her, he went on awkwardly: “There’s nothing more unpleasant than, ah … being on the receiving end of unwanted attention of that, um. Kind.”

 

Killeen felt her own face flame. Her stomach knotted until she could taste bile at the back of her throat. _Oh, sweet Maker, he knows. He knows and he’s trying to tactfully tell me … He knows._

 

_He knows._

 

_Maker, let the earth open and swallow me up, let a stray stone from the battlements crack my skull, let me vanish from the face of the earth right this second._

 

_He knows._

 

“Of course.” Her voice must have sounded strange, although Killeen could hardly hear it past the roaring in her ears, because Cullen glanced up at her, suddenly frowning. She forced a smile, felt as if it must be a rictus. “Anything else, ser?”

 

“Kill?” he asked.

 

“ _Anything else, ser_?”

 

He hesitated a moment longer, then shook his head. “Not right now. Run this down to Master Dennet and get back to the construction work.”

 

She took the offered paper, and somehow, she wasn’t sure _how_ exactly, her fingers brushed his.

 

Killeen snatched her hand back, stammered something about _right away_ , and fled.

 


	12. From Afar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen contends with inventory, rocks, sand, and demons.

It wasn’t possible for Killeen to completely avoid Cullen, of course. Even if her duties hadn’t brought them together a dozen times a day, in the limited confines of Skyhold it was inevitable they would encounter each other, on the battlements, crossing the courtyard, in the Great Hall as Cullen left the War Room and Killeen hauled yet another arm-load of books up to the library for Dorian’s research.

 

Each time their paths crossed, Killeen kept her face to neutral friendliness, made sure not to stand too close to him, kept her remarks to a minimum.

 

Each time, Cullen was stilted and awkward and hardly able to meet her gaze.

 

So when Scout Harding needed reinforcements against the swarming undead of Crestwood, Killeen volunteered to lead the squad.

 

She expected Cullen to be relieved, but when she proposed it, for an instant she thought she saw shock on his face before he looked down at his desk, picked up a parchment and turned toward the window and its better light.

 

“Of course,” he said absently, already absorbed in whatever problem that parchment contained. “If it’s what you want.”

 

“It is,” she said

 

On her way out, she paused with her hand on the doorknob as he cleared his throat. “Kill — I —” He coughed. “You’ll be missed.”

 

Killeen forced herself to look back with a grin. “Of course. Who else can forge your signature on requisition slips as well as me?”

 

Cullen chuckled, perhaps the first time she’d won a laugh from him in days, and if sounded a little forced, well, _I’ll take what I can get_.

 

She took the memory of that laugh to Crestwood, the memory and the hope that it might mean she hadn’t ruined the friendship between them forever with her _unwanted attention_ , that distance and time might let them settle back into the easy friendship that had been the sure and certain underpinning of her life since before the world had begun to end.

 

The Inquisitor blew through Crestwood like a brisk breeze and, like a brisk breeze, swept away the clouds and endless drizzle. Unlike a breeze, though, she also managed to lay the undead and send the local bandits packing. Killeen moved in to Caer Bronach, which was at least in better shape than Skyhold, and started once again filling sheets and sheets of parchment with lists of supplies and comments on the condition of the armoury.

 

Then one of the Spymaster’s crows brought news of an engineering problem on the Exalted Plains, orders for Killeen to solve it — Cullen’s elegant script in the margin, _Kill, needs your touch. At least it’ll be warm. I’m sending beer._

 

She spent entirely too much time tracing those words with her finger, holding the scrap of parchment that he’d held, noting the spatter of ink that betrayed his habit of using a quill until it was worn to a nub, legacy of a childhood where learning was valued but funds were short.

 

She realised she was covering the _s_ in the first sentence with her fingernail just to see how it felt to read …

 

Blushing crimson despite the fact she was entirely unobserved, Killeen threw the parchment in the fire and went to pack.

 

It _did_ need her touch, as it turned out, a tunnel full of boulders crammed so tightly that dislodging one threatened to bring the rest down on any work team and a chief engineer enamoured of explosives. Killeen’s patience was tested to the limit by the time she’d managed to get him to clear the route without killing or maiming anyone and her report on their success included a pointed remark about her Commander’s entirely insufficient ideas about necessary quantities of beer.

 

Killeen was packing her gear to return to Skyhold when another crow brought news of another problem — building a bridge over sulphuric springs — with Cullen’s orders for _her_ , specifically, to attend to it, and she realised that he was doing everything he could to keep her a long way away from him.

 

Small, painful thump in her chest at _that_ knowledge, that settled into a low ache she carried with her to the Western Approach. The sand and the sun and the stink of sulphur were distractions during the day, but at night Killeen lay in her tent and stared up at the canvas and listened to her labouring, limping heart.

 

Tried not to imagine what the Inquisitor and Cullen might be doing right at that moment, to wonder if he’d gotten up the courage to speak and they were wrapped in each other’s arms, his cloak covering both of them, or if instead they were exchanging shy glances, letting their hands accidentally-on-purpose touch …

 

Tried and failed.

 

It was almost a relief when the order came to move on Adamant. The order didn’t specifically include Killeen, but it didn’t specifically _exclude_ her, either, and _all available personnel with experience fighting demons_ certainly fit her right down to the ground.

 

And a battlefield would leave her with no time to dwell on anything but staying alive.

 

It was only when she reached the massive camp spread out on the plains before the fortress and was picking her way through the lines looking for her assigned tent that Killeen realised it had completely slipped her mind that _of course_ the Inquisitor and her Commander would be present for such a crucial engagement.

 

Fortunately, there were far too many people, and far too much urgency in their preparations, for their paths to cross, and the next night Killeen found herself standing at the foot of a siege ladder in the pre-dawn hours, staring up at the broad backside of the Iron Bull as he led that quarter’s assault.

 

_Deep breath. Here we go._

 

“For the Inquisition!” she yelled, heard the cry echoed by the men and women behind her, and flung herself upward.

 

She was right behind the Bull as he hurled himself over the battlements, massive axe dealing blow after blow, shield up, sword low, spitted a mage about to hurl fire down on the soldiers still climbing, backhanded another across the face with her shield, turned and saw —

 

“Demon!” she bellowed, voice cracking, and flung herself aside as the huge grey shape snapped a whip of lightning through the air where she’d just been.

 

The Bull finished off his last opponent, and turned. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Pride demon. These fuckers are _tough_.”

 

And it was on them.

 

If not for the Bull, none of them would have survived. The big Qunari could hit hard enough to hurt even a _thing_ like the one they faced, and he kept its attention on him as much as he could, taking lash after lash of blazing lighting without flinching while Killeen and the others who had made it up the ladder tried to get in behind the demon, hacking and slashing and twisting away before it could turn.

 

But it _was_ tough. Their blows, even the Bull’s blows, seemed to hardly have an impact, and more importantly, the demon was tireless, and even the Iron Bull was not. Reactions slowed, shields dipped, legs lost their spring … one man fell, then another.

 

_It’s un-fucking-killable_ , Killeen thought.

 

There was a cry further along the battlement, a flare of light. _The Inquisitor_ , Killeen realised.

 

_Maker’s balls, Cullen will be right by her side._

 

The pride demon turned, lumbered toward the new threat. Killeen threw herself forward, raining blow after blow on the creature’s back, screaming threats and defiance at it until the words vanished into a single howl, hit it and hit it and kept hitting it even as it turned to confront her blows, feeble and ineffectual as they must have seemed to it.

 

Killeen swung her sword again as sparks arced between the demon’s hands, got in one more strike before her whole body exploded in pain.

 

She flew backwards and landed in darkness.


	13. Back To Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Inquisitor saves the day.

“Kaffar!”

 

Hands touching her, gentle, but even so they hurt her, _hurts hurts hurts oh Maker it hurts_ and she couldn’t bite the scream back, tried to twist away but the movement hurt worse and more sounds forced their way past her lips, animal sounds of pain.

 

The hands became firmer, implacable, hurt more. “I know, I know, but I have to see, over soon, my lovely, over soon —”

 

Pain gone.

 

Killeen sobbed in relief and opened her eyes to see Dorian Pavus looking down at her, face unaccustomedly serious. “Better?” he asked.

 

“Yes,” Killeen croaked, and Dorian grinned.

 

“So much for Vivianne’s insistence that necromancers can’t be trusted near the dying. Up you come, Lady Lieutenant, this is no place for a leisurely nap.” He seized her arm and hauled her up, firing a bolt of fire at a shade oozing toward them without changing expression. “I think we should be moving, especially if there’s something around that can get the better of _you_.”

 

“Pride demon,” Killeen said. She took stock of herself, _nothing broken, chest hurts like I’ve been kicked by a mule but nothing clicks or scrapes when I breathe, god-awful headache and I can’t feel the scarred side of my face **at all.**_ Nothing serious, then. She realised she had neither sword nor helmet and looked around for them.

 

“Charming creatures, aren’t they?” Dorian said. “Make me want to take up modesty. Well, _almost_.”

 

Killeen spotted her sword, blackened but unbent, and beside it a shape of burst and blackened metal that —

 

_Is my helmet._

 

She raised her hand to touch her numb cheek and Dorian quickly grabbed her wrist. “No, don’t touch it, I’ve patched it but you can’t go poking it and expect that to hold.”

 

“So much,” Killeen said, and was surprised to hear how steady her voice was, “so much for my girlish good looks.”

 

Dorian laughed. “Now, the scarred and dangerous mien suits you much better. By the time the healers are done with you, you’ll look _quite_ distinguished. In a piratical way. But right now, I think we had better get down to where the action is, don’t you? Can you walk?”

 

She could, just, she could lift her sword, and so they made their way across the battlements to the stairs to the central courtyard, following the rising din of battle as they picked their way between corpses, some of them Wardens, too many of them not.

 

Rounding the last corner of the stairs, Killeen saw the ruins of the courtyard seething with the demons pouring from an open rift. In the middle of the fray, Cullen laid about him with his sword, calling encouragement to his troops even as he rained blows down on the monsters in front of him.

 

For all his efforts, the line was being forced back, folding in on itself. Steel and flesh, as Killeen had been reminded so recently, are no match for an army from the Fade.

 

Beside her, Dorian raised his staff, and a nimbus of red enveloped the demons nearest the Inquisition’s soldiers. The creatures froze, and then began to blunder about in confusion or outright flee. The soldiers took advantage of the opportunity, disposing of the nearest, winning some breathing space.

 

Cullen slashed a wraith in half and turned, sword raised to acknowledge the assistance.

 

His gaze met Killeen’s. At the look of shock on his face, it was impossible for her not to realise that the omission of her name from the orders to assemble at Adamant had been no oversight, and the utter horror which rapidly succeeded it gave her a clearer picture of just how much damage the pride demon had done to her face than any mirror could.

 

“More coming through!” hollered a soldier.

 

Cullen wheeled, and Killeen raised her sword and ran forward. From the stairs, Dorian kept up a constant barrage of magefire, dropping the demons in Killeen’s path until she reached the Inquisition soldiers and their shield wall opened to let her through.

 

Automatically, she found her familiar place by Cullen’s side, shoulder to shoulder, twisting to cover the low slash he made that left him open on the right, trusting he’d block the claws descending toward her as she lunged forward to spit a shade.

 

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” Cullen panted when Dorian’s spells gave them a brief respite. “We’re elbow deep in demons so _of course_ you’re here.”

 

“Pot. Kettle,” Killeen said, and then the earth heaved beneath them both and a giant tangle of stick-thin limbs scattered the Inquisition soldiers like dolls off an overturned table.

 

Killeen gained her feet and lunged toward Cullen. He saw her and wheeled away, and Killeen turned on her heel and set her back to his as she had in so many fights before, the two of them becoming one single fighter with two swords and no blind-spots. More demons were pouring out of the rift.

 

_Her worshipfulness better pull a firebolt out of her Andraste blessed arse pretty soon._

 

“Where is she?” she yelled over her shoulder to Cullen.

 

“She was on the tower when the dragon brought it down!”

 

 _Well, shit._ They were pressed too hard for Killeen to have time for more than a brief, sharp ache of pity for Cullen and what he must be feeling, facing death without even the small comfort of doing so by the side of the one he loved. She hacked and slashed and cursed, feeling Cullen’s back against her shift and move as he did the same. There were too many, they pressed too close, she could barely keep them off her and she was tiring, weakening …

 

Then the Inquisitor stepped out of the Fade, raised her hand, and slammed the rift shut.

 

Demons exploded, including the one right in Killeen’s face, splattering her with something disgusting.

 

She spat and gagged and tried to rub her eyes clear with one gauntleted hand.

 

“Head back,” Cullen ordered briskly, and when she obeyed, poured the contents of his water flask over her face. “That stuff evaporates but it can be nasty. Get a healer to check you.”

 

“As soon as —”

 

He took her arm in a firm grip, turned her toward the stairs and gave her a shove. “As soon as now, Kill, that’s an order.”

 

“Yes, ser,” she said, and went.

 

Rumours swirled past her as she waited outside the healer’s tent for them to have time to deal with the walking wounded. The Inquisitor had disbanded the Wardens — she had conscripted the Wardens — she’d turned the Inquisition _over_ to the Wardens. The Champion of Kirkwall had been seen — no, it was the Hero of Ferelden — and had vanished again, or been killed, or was lost in the Fade.

 

A wave of nausea swept over Killeen at the thought of being _in_ the Fade, let alone _trapped_ there, and she choked down bile until her stomach made a decisive heave and she vomited on the ground beside her, waves of retching that went on and on until she could barely catch her breath and then _couldn’t_ catch her breath and —

 

“ _Maker’s breath_!” Strong hands hauled her up and she was bundled over a fur-clad shoulder, carried, and lowered to a cot. “Lady Vivienne, if you would be so good — _now_. If you please.”

 

Killeen hunched over, struggling for air as the spasms wracked her.

 

A cool hand touched the back of her neck and the nausea vanished like —

 

Killeen looked up at the unsmiling face of Madame de Fer. _Magic_.

 

She sucked in welcome air. “Thank you.”

 

“I know it’s ladylike to swallow, dear, but that hardly applies to the innards of demons,” Lady Vivienne said, and over her shoulder Killeen saw Cullen blush scarlet.

 

Her own cheeks, she was sure, were the same colour, at least in the places the pride demon hadn’t marked.

 

Cullen coughed. “I _told_ you to get yourself seen straight away.”

 

“I did, they said to wait.”

 

“I daresay you didn’t mention you’d been consuming toxic sludge,” Lady Vivienne said. “Now, let me have a look at you.” Firm hands took her head, turned her face from one side to another. “My, you have had quite the day of it, haven’t you? I’m afraid I haven’t the time to fix up _everything_ , but let’s get you in shape for the road, shall we?” She touched Killeen’s face gently, cool tingling spreading from her fingers across Killeen’s skin, then her shoulder, her chest, taking the pain away with them each time. “There. Have yourself seen again once you get back to Skyhold. You wear the uniform of the Inquisition, it’s unbecoming to walk around looking like you make a habit of losing fights.”

 

As Killeen started to get up, Cullen took her arm and steadied her. “She makes a habit of surviving them.”

 

“So do I, my dear Commander,” Lady Vivienne said coolly. “And yet, I find myself able to resist the temptation to walk around looking like I enjoyed a previous career as a training dummy. It must be a Ferelden thing. Like poor hygiene, and wine that can double as vinegar, or _weedkiller_ , in a pinch.”

 

With a swish of her robe, she strode away.

 

“Thanks,” Killeen said, awkwardly trying to keep as much space between Cullen and herself as she could as he towed her out of the healer’s tent. “I wish you’d mentioned that I might have been _poisoned_.”

 

“I wish you’d by the Maker be where you’re supposed to be, occasionally!” Cullen snapped. He steered her around the corner and into a quiet space between two empty wagons. “I’m trying to put a castle and an army together with my bare hands, you want to swan off on a tour of Thedas. An army of demons, and you’re in front of it. Send you to the healers and you dawdle about outside.”

 

“ _You_ sent me to the Exalted Plains and to Death Drink Springs,” Killeen retorted, stung.

 

“You made it clear Skyhold wasn’t to your tastes. And you’re not exactly overseeing construction at the moment, are you?”

 

“Where in the Void am I supposed to be when you’re fighting for your life but _at your back_?” Killeen demanded.

 

They glared at each other a moment, and then Cullen let out a long, shaky breath, and released her arm. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve been … there’s been a lot to do. Not much sleep.”

 

Killeen was fluent enough in _Commander Cullen_ to understand that was an apology.

 

 _My turn._ “I’m sorry I chose a bad time to be away.”

 

He muttered something that sounded like _worse than you know_ , and then: “I understand your reasons. But I can put it behind me, if you can.”

 

Killeen felt herself flush. “Sure,” she said, with as much conviction as she could muster. “I’ll just make sure the crew are —”

 

“ _Kill_.” Cullen’s voice was ragged, and she saw for the first time how deep the shadows beneath his eyes had become, how sharp the lines of strain. _Oh, Cullen. Is nobody watching through the night to let you sleep?_

 

“I’ll travel back with the army,” she said. “I won’t leave —” _you_ “again.”

 

His shoulders slumped. “Thank you,” he said with evident relief.

 

“Now, come on,” Killeen said briskly. “I’ll take care of the casualty reports.”

 

He followed as she strode off. “I’ll —”

 

“Get some bloody sleep or I’ll hit you with a hammer,” Killeen said.

 

“Empty threat, without a hammer.” His voice was lighter, almost back to normal. _Almost_.

 

She spotted the standard that marked his tent and headed toward it. “Look around, Commander.” Killeen made a sweeping gesture to their surroundings. “We’re in the middle of an army camp. Do you really think I couldn’t lay my hands on a hammer in less than three minutes?”

 

She got a laugh from him, not much more than a whimper, but still a laugh. “I believe you could lay your hands on a hammer in less than three minutes in the middle of the Hissing Wastes.”

 

“Exactly.” Killeen ushered him into his tent and pointed at the cot. “Sleep.”

 

He hesitated. “You’ll —”

 

“Be back to work on the reports before you close your eyes,” Killeen assured him.

 

“Thank you.”

 

“Are you kidding?” She grinned at him. “Pass up this luxury?”

 

Quick as she was, Cullen was already out like a light when she returned, cloak and armour piled at the foot of the bed with a carelessness that told of his weariness. Killeen set them to rights as quietly as she could. Asleep, Cullen still looked tired, thinner than he had been, a couple of cuts on his cheek that looked to Killeen more like carelessness shaving than the marks of battle.

 

Killeen settled herself at his desk and sharpened a quill. Listening for the sound of her Commander’s nightmares, she bent to work. 


	14. Beside Each Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which people lie to themselves, and each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Cullen’s room doesn’t have a fireplace in game, but honestly, no fireplace and no roof in the middle of the Frostbacks? Man would be a Cullensicle.

 

 

On the army’s slow trip back to Skyhold, Killeen found out quickly that Cullen’s nightmares had grown much, much worse. Often, they would not release him until she had shaken him awake, and once awake, he no longer made even a pretence of trying to sleep again, but would work at his desk until dawn.

 

When they reached the Inquisition’s fortress, Killeen moved a bedroll into Cullen’s loft without asking for permission his pride might have made him refuse to grant. She had no idea, and was certainly not about to ask, if his relationship with the Inquisitor was now of the sort that might make the mage a regular visitor to Cullen’s private quarters, but there was that big fancy suite off the Great Hall they could use if so, and at least with Killeen there, Cullen would allow himself to _fall_ asleep.

 

Killeen was careful to make sure she was seen leaving her own quarters every morning, less because she believed that anyone would think for an instant that there could be anything improper between Cullen and herself than because it allowed Cullen to pretend she only kept a bedroll on his bedroom floor for nights when the press of work had them both bent over reports until dawn.

 

They were both pretending. While Cullen pretended that Killeen slept in his loft for her own benefit, she herself pretended that she was over him so thoroughly that she came to half believe it herself — at least, until she found herself staring at his shirtless back as he splashed water on his face in the morning, or knowing exactly how many times she’d made him laugh that day, or watching him read by candlelight for hours at a time.

 

She made him eat, fetching from the mess for him when he claimed to be too busy to take a break. The night he woke chilled and shivering uncontrollably, she covered him with her own blankets and lugged firewood up the ladder until even with the gap in the roof the room was a furnace and his shaking, finally, ceased. When he vomited, she cleaned it up without a word, allowing him to pretend it hadn’t happened. When the headaches had him squinting even in dim light, she intercepted messengers before they reached his door and let him sit quietly in the dark as long as he needed to. When he doubled over in sudden pain, or seized the desk or bookshelf for support, Killeen pretended not to see, moved closer as if on some coincidental errand of her own so her arm or shoulder was in easy reach when he needed support.

 

All of it told her that something was very badly wrong with her Commander.

 

Still, she was completely unprepared when one night she heard the familiar low mutters of _Maker, no … leave me … no_ , leaned up from her bedroll to shake his shoulder and the next second found his hands wrapped around her throat.

 

That surprise cost her precious seconds. By the time she realised that this was not, in fact, some ghastly nightmare of her own, but that Cullen was really on top of her, pinning her down with knees and elbows, powerful hands tightening around her neck, her vision was already greying at the edges until his face, set in a rictus of hatred, seemed to be at the end of a long tunnel.

 

She managed to free one arm, braced herself against the floor, and hit him in the nose with the heel of her hand as hard as she could.

 

Cullen reared back, fingers loosening, and Killeen writhed out from under him, rolled away until she hit the wall. Wheezing for breath, she heard him move towards her and forced her shaking limbs to raise her into a defensive crouch.

 

He stopped, one hand extended towards her, the other over his nose, staring at her with horror. “Kill, Maker, _Kill_ , are you all right?”

 

“Yes.” It came out sounding like a hinge on a rusty gate and Cullen flinched. “Are you?”

 

“I — it was — I thought —” His voice cracked, and he dropped to his knees. “Andraste forgive me, I was — was _back_ —” He bowed his head, shoulders shaking.

 

Killeen straightened and took a tentative step towards him. “Back in the Circle Tower?”

 

He nodded, forced words between the sobs. “So — _sorry_ , Kill, I —” When she took the blanket from his bed and draped it around his shoulders, he flinched away. “ _Don’t_ —” he choked. “Don’t come near me.”

 

Killeen crouched in front of him. “Are you going to strangle me again?”

 

“ _No_!”

 

“Then shut up and let me look at your nose.” She seized his wrists and drew his hands away from his face. “Yep, I broke it pretty good. You’d better get Lady Vivienne to look at it if you don’t want to end up looking like me.”

 

Cullen just stared at her, face still marked with anguish. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

“Sorry enough to tell me what’s going on?”

 

His gaze slid away from hers. “It was just a nightmare.”

 

“Andraste’s dimpled buttcheeks it was _just_ anything,” Killeen snapped. “Something’s wrong. More wrong than usual. I know, because I’ve been covering for you. And you know I know, because you know I’ve been covering for you. And you haven’t wanted to talk about it, and I’ve let you get away with that, because Maker knows talking’s never been your strong suit, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you choke me to death just to avoid an awkward conversation.”

 

He seized her hand. “Kill, I never thought I would — I never thought that —I’m so sorry, Kill, I’m so sorry.”

 

“Talk,” Killeen said implacably. “Or I tell the Inquisitor everything, or at least, everything I’ve seen, and once she’s no doubt ordered you to the healers you can talk to _them_.”

 

“She already knows.”

 

 _That_ went straight past her guard, straight past the illusion she had mostly successfully sold herself that they were _friends_ , just _good friends_.

 

He’d told the Inquisitor something he wasn’t willing to tell Killeen.

 

It was one thing to know there were parts of him she’d never have. It was quite enough to find someone else taking even the parts she’d thought were _hers_ , and hers alone.

 

She jerked her hand from his grasp and stood. “Then the Inquisitor can clean up next time you’re sick on the floor.”

 

“Kill.” He reached for her hand again, and the pleading in his voice kept her still. “Stay.”

 

“Then tell me,” she said, and didn’t sit down beside him until he nodded.

 

“How much do you know,” he asked, “about lyrium?”

 

Killeen listened in silence as he explained it to her, his voice steadying as he went on. The power it gave Templars, and the trade-off of addiction. The pain, the dangers, of withdrawal. His decision to risk them, his determination to be free, completely free, of the Templars after Kirkwall.

 

“At first it was … _bearable_ ,” he said. “But lately … it just grows worse. I can’t sleep, I can’t think, I _know_ I must be making mistakes. And now _this_.” He turned to look at her. “It’ll never happen again, Kill, I promise you. Tomorrow, I’ll see Cassandra and tell her I need to start taking it again.”

 

“Or,” Killeen said, “I could just start waking you up by poking you with a long stick from the other side of the room and then legging it down the ladder.”

 

Cullen shook his head. “I owe the Inquisition my best. This … this is not my best.”

 

“It’s about twenty times better than anyone _else’s_ best,” Killeen said without thinking, then cursed herself when Cullen blushed in the moonlight. “I mean, militarily. And if you were making mistakes, I’d have told you about them. At length.”

 

The hint of a smile. “You would have, it’s true.”

 

“Did _she_ tell you to take it again? When you talked to her?”

 

“No.” He studied his hands. “She said she respected my decision.”

 

“There you go, then,” Killeen said encouragingly.

 

“Kill, I can’t keep doing this. Especially not now you —”

 

When he fell silent she poked him in the shoulder with one forefinger. “Now I’ve broken your nose?”

 

“Now you can’t … stay. With me.”

 

“Why not?” Killeen asked, layering on the fake surprise with a trowel.

 

“If I — next time, I might — Kill, I couldn’t bear that.” He turned to face her, and in the shadows and the flicker of the moonlight through the tree poking through his roof, Killeen could almost imagine she heard in his voice what she most wanted to be there. She wanted to take his face between her hands, kiss his scarred lips, cradle his head against her shoulder until he believed everything was going to be all right.

 

_Except there’s nothing more unpleasant than being on the receiving end of unwanted attention of that kind._

 

And he needed her too much right now for any further indulgence of her foolish, ungovernable heart.

 

“I’ll be here tomorrow night, Cullen,” she said instead. “And every night you need.” A beat. “ _With_ my ten foot pole.”

 

He laughed, and then his breath caught and he ducked his head to hide his face from her, reaching out one hand blindly.

 

Killeen took it and held it in a friend’s strong grasp, pretending not to hear him weeping, as they sat beside each other in the dark.


	15. In Her Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen takes on a new responsibility.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on a couple of comments, I thought I should make it clear — I’ll playing slightly fast and loose with some of the scenes that are available in-game based on playthrough choices. What Killeen sees, occurs (although perhaps not always as she interprets it). What she believes, or suspects, or hears as rumour, may or may not be true.

 

 

 

Whether it was anything Killeen had said, or something the Inquisitor said, as far as Killeen could tell Cullen didn’t return to taking lyrium. He did begin taking medicinal draughts prepared by the healers, which seemed to give him some relief from the headaches, although not from the nightmares. Killeen was careful to be cautious waking him from them, ready now when he flailed half-awake at the demons of his imagination.

 

Still, it was easier for him. He needed her less by his side, which meant she could do more elsewhere in Skyhold — back to their old routine, with Killeen her Commander’s eyes and ears in places he didn’t have time to oversee personally, making decisions and giving instructions that he would approve in retrospect.

 

And another familiarity — Fel, skipping along behind Killeen, standing grave and silent as Killeen checked counts of barrels and sacks, knocking on walls that Killeen suspected of structural flaws with a tiny fist, echoing _Maker’s balls_ in a piping voice when they discovered an entire colony of mice in the grain stores.

 

At first, Killeen sternly bade her return to class. Two days later, a flicker of movement caught her eye and she looked up to see Fel just darting back from the railing of the balcony above. _Come down here **right now**_ , Killeen bellowed in the voice that made grown men in full armour lose control of their bowels, and marched the girl back to Adan’s school herself.

 

But the next day she once again had a shadow, slipping between the columns of the basement behind her.

 

_Maker give me strength._ “I can _see_ you, Fel.”

 

A small figure slid out into view, poised to run. “Are you going to make me go back?”

 

“Will you stay if I do?”

 

Fel shook her head, and Killeen sighed. “Fine. Then you’ll have to make yourself useful. The Inquisition has no room for passengers.”

 

She found an old slate and chalk for Fel, handed them over with the admonition that if they were lost, Fel would be working off the cost until she was old enough to marry, and strode off, carefully making no allowance for Fel’s shorter legs. _If she gets tired and bored enough, school will look much more attractive._

 

They found mould in the basement library, and Killeen made Fel write _mould_ on her slate until it was both legible and correctly spelled. The quartermaster reported that eight hundred bricks were needed to repair the ruined healer’s quarters and Killeen made Fel run to the wagoneers and find out how many bricks could be hauled in one load and then work out how many loads eight hundred bricks would take. They listened to Bonny Sims’ complaints about the hazards of the roads between Skyhold and Val Royeaux and an hour later Killeen made Fel repeat them all back to her verbatim.

 

She dismissed Fel a bare quarter hour before dinner with the warning that if she wasn’t ready at Commander Cullen’s door straight after breakfast the next morning, she needn’t bother.

 

Somewhat to her surprise, Fel was there, shivering a little in the cold, slate under her arm and chalk clutched firmly in her fist.

 

Killeen eyed her. It was habit that she and Cullen would go over the tasks for the day ahead together over sweet rolls from the kitchen and tea brewed on Cullen’s brazier — a small, quiet space she cherished, when Cullen, focused entirely on the work they shared, was hers and hers alone.

 

_But, Maker, it’s chill out here at this hour._

 

“Well, come on then,” she said, and opened the door.

 

Cullen gave Killeen one look of surprise, so brief that she doubted anyone else would have seen it, and stretched out a leg to hook an extra stool toward the desk.

 

Fel was on her best behaviour, having absorbed somewhere the understanding that one spoke in the presence of superior officers only when directly addressed. She did no more than eye hungrily the rolls Killeen and Cullen split between them, and politely sipped the tea Cullen poured her. When the meeting ended and Killeen tested her on the work that lay before them, the girl repeated Cullen’s instructions almost verbatim.

 

“All right,” Killeen said. “You can come with me. _Today_.”

 

It became a _new_ habit. Killeen began appropriating enough sweet rolls for three, and goat’s milk for Fel’s tea. Cullen set three chairs at his desk as a matter of course, and directed some of his queries to Fel instead of Killeen — with a sideways glance to be sure the answer was correct. He was adept at discovering mathematical problems in the work of the Inquisition, setting Fel to solve them as he and Killeen pushed trickier questions back and forth between them, and it was he who persuaded the girl that a working knowledge of the Chant of Light was essential, even for a soldier.

 

_That_ , Killeen could have done without. Testing Fel daily on the Chant meant, inevitably, refreshing her own faded and incomplete understanding, and many nights she found herself nodding over a copy as the candle burned down long after she would have preferred to be abed.

 

“… and creations, she shall know the peace of the Creator’s benediction,” she muttered.

 

“Maker.”

 

Killeen turned instantly, letting the book drop, ready to stir Cullen from his nightmares, but his eyes were open and clear.

 

“The peace of the _Maker’s_ benediction,” he said quietly, his voice rich and sweet in the quiet of the night. “The Light shall lead her safely through the paths of this world, and into the next.” He paused. “For she … go on, Kill.”

 

Flushing, Killeen realised she had been staring at him, the candlelight gilding the curls of his hair and the fuzz along his cheek, the muscles of his shoulder and arm molding the thin linen of his shirt.

 

“For she who trusts in the Maker,” she said hastily, “fire is her water. As the moth sees light and goes toward flame, she should see fire and go towards Light.”

 

“The Veil holds no uncertainty for her,” Cullen continued softly. “And she will know no fear of death, for the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword.”

 

“Cullen,” Killeen said, her voice coming out lower and softer than she had intended. “Do you ever think …?”

 

Her voice trailed away, but he made no attempt to fill the silence, only looked at her with the flickering light of the candle limning the curve of his lips and the slope of his cheekbone.

 

Killeen lowered her eyes to her book. “Do you ever think about what happens to the moth who goes towards the flame?”

 

“Maker, though the darkness comes upon me,” Cullen said, “I shall embrace the light.” He paused. “Do you remember the rest?”

 

“I shall weather the storm,” Killeen said. “I shall endure.”

 

His voice was very soft. “What you have created, no one can tear asunder.”

 

Killeen let her book drop. “Do you believe that? Really? In all this, do you think we’ll endure?”

 

“I hope so. I have faith that it’s so.” He watched her. “Do you not believe?”

 

“I believe there’s a Maker,” Killeen said, “who’s turned his back on us not once but twice. That doesn’t make me hopeful. It makes me _angry_.”

 

“We weren’t worthy.”

 

Killeen stood abruptly, book tumbling from her knees. “Andraste’s tasselled tits to _that_. I might not be worthy but —” _you_ — “I know plenty of people who are.”

 

“Perhaps the Maker demands more than you,” Cullen said with the hint of a smile.

 

“Then he’s an _arsehole_ ,” Killeen snapped.

 

Cullen raised himself on his elbows. “ _Kill_ ,” he said, shocked.

 

“Well he _is_ ,” she said, taking a step toward him. “This whole fortress is full of people who are risking their _lives_ to make a better world, who are working day and night on a few hours sleep just to keep other people safe, and the Maker thinks they aren’t _worthy_? If some huge powerful mage turned up and said, oh, Sutherland isn’t _worthy_ , Nightingale isn’t _worthy_ , Master Dennet isn’t _worthy_ , you’d shove his words down his throat and follow it with your sword. How come the Maker gets special dispensation to be a gold-plated _prick_?”

 

“Theologians have been disputing that question for generations,” Cullen said, and Killeen realised that she was standing by his bed, leaning down over him. “Kill …”

 

She wheeled away and blew out the candle. “Too much theology for one night,” she said crisply. “We both have an early start.”

 

If he said her name again, in the dark the candle left behind, it was so softly that Killeen could believe she hadn’t heard it. 


	16. In His Cups

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone drowns his sorrows.

 

“When I grow up,” Fel announced, “I’m going to marry Ser Bear.”

 

“Well,” Killeen said, studying the racks of barrels. _Five, six, seven_ …“He might be married to someone else by then.”

 

“Then I’ll be his mistress!” Fel said.

 

Killeen paused, turned. “Who’s been telling you about mistresses?”

 

“Madame De Fire,” Fel said.

 

“Madame de Fer,” Killeen corrected. “It means Iron Lady. She talked to you about mistresses?”

 

“Not on purpose.” Fel paused. “If she’s the Iron Lady, what sort of Lady are you?”

 

“No sort. What do you mean, not on purpose?”

 

“ _Well_ ,” said Fel. “I was sort of looking around and I heard Madame de Fire - _de Fer_ \- and the Inquisitor talking and I was waiting for them to leave so I could go. And I couldn’t help hearing.”

 

“You shouldn’t eavesdrop,” Killeen said.

 

“I didn’t mean to,” Fel said. “But Madame de Fer said she was this man’s mistress and his wife’s friend. So, when you marry Ser Bear, I can be his mistress and we’ll all be friends!”

 

“I …” Killeen paused, tried to work out where to start. “I won’t be marrying Ser Bear.”

 

Fel frowned. “Why not? He’s your very bestest friend.”

 

“Well, there’s more to marriage than being friends.” Killeen concentrated on the barrels. _Four, five, six._

 

“Is there?” Fel asked with lively interest. “Pa tells Ma all the time that she’s his best friend in all the world.”

 

“You shouldn’t tell me what you Ma and Pa say to each other,” Killeen said forbiddingly.

 

Fel screwed up her face in a frown. “Why not? It isn’t secret. They knew I was there.”

 

“Just ‘cos something isn’t secret, doesn’t mean it isn’t private,” Killeen said. “Fel, if I have seven rows of barrels each three high, how many barrels do I have?”

 

“Twenty and one,” Fel said promptly. “How do you know something’s private?”

 

“You don’t always,” Killeen said absently, marking the number on her board with her private symbol for ‘suspected pilferage’.  After a moment’s thought, she added a tiny pair of horns to the symbol. It might be unfair, but missing ale made her immediately think of the Chargers. “So it’s best not to talk about what you see and hear about other people too much.”

 

“So I shouldn’t tell you that I saw Ser Dorian sleeping on the walkway outside his room?”

 

Killeen paused. “Well, maybe you should tell me that. When?”

 

“Like, after breakfast. When I was finding you.  Why is he sleeping outside?”

 

“I don’t know,” Killeen said, although she had a fair idea. “Let’s go find out.”

 

She tucked her board in her belt as Fel skipped off, leading the way.

 

Dorian was, indeed, sleeping on the walkway outside his room. _More precisely_ , Killeen thought,  _he’s passed out on the walkway outside his room._

 

She stooped and shook his shoulder, but the mage just mumbled something on a gust of sour ale, and turned his face away.

 

“Is he sick?” Fel asked.

 

“Sort of,” Killeen said carefully.

 

“Should I get a healer?”

 

“No,” Killeen said. “It’s not a sort of sick he needs a healer for.”  She rolled Dorian over and searched his pockets, finding his key.

 

The mage opened his eyes as she was taking it from his breeches pocket. “Y’re ver’ pretty,” he said, “but no’ m’ type, ‘m afraid.”

 

 “You’re not mine, either,” Killeen said, holding out the key to Fel. “Run along and unlock the door, Fel. You know which one?”

 

 The girl nodded and raced off.

 

“Why no’?” Dorian asked, pouting.

 

“I prefer my men upright,” Killeen said. She pulled one of Dorian’s arms over her shoulder, bent and heaved and got him in the rescuer’s grip used to carry wounded from the field of battle.

 

“Picky, picky,” Dorian slurred, and was sick down her back.

 

She carried him along the walkway to his room, where Fel stood holding the door open, and dumped him on his bed.

 

“I’m sorry you’re sick, Ser Dorian,” Fel said sympathetically.

 

Dorian opened one eye and peered at her, and then closed it and covered his face with his hand. “Andraste’s secret girdle, is there a _child_ in my room?”

 

“This is Fel,” Killeen said, and with a meaningful look, “who is just _leaving_.”

 

“But —” Fel started.

 

“ _Leaving_ ,” Killeen said again firmly, and Fel sighed and went. Killeen sat down at the foot of the bed and began to pull off Dorian’s boots. “I thought you’d learned your lesson about trying to go drink for drink with the chargers.”

 

Dorian gave a whimper of laughter that was almost a sob. “Maker, yes. No, I was —”

 

“Hurting, loving, angry,” Cole said from the top of the dresser, and both Killeen and Dorian started, the mage with an undignified _aaugh_! “Mixed together, boiling until —”

 

“Cole,” Killeen said as Dorian covered his face with his hands.

 

“I’m trying to help,” the pale boy said.

 

Killeen sighed. “Your kind of help isn't what he needs right now."

 

"No,” Cole said, face very serious. “What he needs right now is a bucket."

 

He vanished. Dorian lowered his hands, swallowed convulsively, and said in a choked voice, “I’m afraid he might be right.”

 

Killeen saw the sweat spring out on his face. She grabbed his shoulder and hauled him up to lean over the edge of the bed and suddenly Cole was back, slipping an empty pail into place just in time as the mage retched.

 

Stomach empty, Dorian slumped back. “I never thought I’d say this,” he murmured, “but thank you, Cole.”

 

Killeen touched the boy’s shoulder. “You helped,” she said. “And you could help more by —”

 

“Yes,” Cole said, looking into the pail with interest. “He should drink water. Varric always drinks a lot of water.”

 

Then boy and pail were gone.

 

“Well, if this telepathy act ever gets old for him,” Dorian said with an attempt at his usual lightness, “the lad has a bright future as a butler.”

 

“Are you all right?” Killeen asked carefully.

 

“Oh, tip top,” Dorian said. He struggled up on one elbow and began laboriously to shrug out of his leathers. “Just a little family matter. Felt the need to drown my sorrows but the bloody things seem to have learned to swim.”

 

Killeen helped him. “Your family in Tevinter?”

 

“My family in Redcliffe, as it turns out.” He got his shoulder free and tossed his gear to the floor. “Don’t know what might have happened if the Inquisitor hadn’t been there. Drawn staffs at twenty paces, probably. But she …” He sighed, and slumped back. “Seems to see the best in everyone, even my father. Which makes it hard to see entirely the worst in them oneself, you know?”

 

Killeen made a noncommittal noise, picked up his gear and shook it out.

 

“All this running around saving the world from ancient evil and she still finds time for family counselling,” Dorian said. “If Varric wrote something like that, his editors would reject it as unrealistic, but she’s real. All that kindness is real.”

 

 _Well, of course it is,_ Killeen thought. _Cullen wouldn’t love her if she wasn’t kind, as well as brave and beautiful._ Silently, she poured a goblet of water from the pitcher on the wash-stand and handed it to him.

 

“Thank you.” Dorian drained it. “Of course, letting a man be sick on you is also very charitable, lovely Lady Lieutenant.”

 

“Hardly charitable,” Killeen said dryly. “I have every intent of taking it out in trade.”

 

Dorian laughed. “Promises, promises,” he said. “Get your glorious _Commander_ to take it out in trade, even better.”

 

“I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree there,” Killeen said.

 

“Oh, I know,” Dorian said. “A man can dream, though, can’t he? That hair! Those lips! After two or three hours solid scrubbing in a bathhouse, he’d be quite presentable.”

 

Killeen resolutely did _not_ think about Cullen in a bathhouse. “Do we really all smell so bad to you?”

 

“The whole country smells like wet dog,” Dorian said. “It’s hard to tell which bit of the miasma is the people. But yes, where I come from people bathe twice a day. All over, with soap.” He raised an eyebrow. “Surely you’ve heard of it? Slippery stuff, makes bubbles, removes dirt?”

 

“Of course I’ve heard of —” Killeen stopped, gave him a level look. “You shouldn’t tease a woman who knows just how hungover you’ll be tomorrow.”

 

“Oh, very true,” Dorian said. His eyes closed, opened again. “Especially not one as ruthless as you.”

 

“Get some sleep,” Killeen suggested.

 

The mage was already snoring as she slipped out the door.

 

“Why do people drink so much if it makes them sick?” Cole asked from directly behind her.

 

Killeen carefully took her hand from her sword and turned, waiting for her pulse to tick down to something approaching normal. “Cole,” she said calmly, “what did Varric tell you about doing that?”

 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was _being_ loud.”

 

“Your loud and other people’s loud is … never mind. What did you do with the bucket?”

 

“I put it back where I got it,” Cole said.

 

“And where was that?” Killeen asked with a certain trepidation.

 

“The gardener’s shed.”

 

As if on cue, a cry of “Oh, for the love of —” came from below them.

 

Killeen sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers, and resolutely did not think any thoughts that might frighten or alarm the strange, pale boy beside her. “Next time,” she said, “it would be better to clean it.”

 

“I’ll remember. Why do they, though?” he persisted, and then: “As bad as Fel how?”

 

Killeen started back toward the Great Hall. “With the questions. And the answer is, lots of reasons. Sometimes because they’re happy. Sometimes because they’re sad.”

 

Cole drifted along beside her. “That doesn’t make sense.”

 

“People don’t, often,” Killeen said. “Surely _you’ve_ realised that by now.”

 

“Yes. Watching the way the muscles of his back move beneath the skin, a scar high on the left shoulder-blade, I remember when he got that —”

 

Killeen spun, face flaming. “ _No_. Cole, no. Stay out of my head.”

 

“But —”

 

“ _No_. And don’t you dare tell anyone, ever, what you just said.” She groped for the right words to explain, settled for: “It would hurt me. Very much.”

 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Cole said.

 

“I’m glad. So you won’t tell anyone, ever.”

 

“All right,” Cole said quietly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt.”

 

“I know.” Killeen made herself smile. “I know you didn’t. Some things are very private, that’s all. How people feel about other people, especially … especially _those_ sort of feelings, is one of them.”

 

“Is that why you don’t tell him?” Cole asked.

 

Killeen closed her eyes. “Really don’t want to talk about it,” she said as mildly as she could.

 

“I don’t understand people,” Cole said sadly. “I don’t always say things right, but _I_ try.”

 

Killeen counted slowly to three.

 

When she opened her eyes, Cole was gone. 


	17. In The Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone wins a Pyrrhic victory

The Chargers came in to the tavern in a tight knot, voices too loud, eyes too bright, cloaks and hair wet with more than snow. Killeen recognised the look: a hard fight survived, a fight that could easily have gone the other way, nerves still jangling with adrenaline and the world gone sharp-edged and unreal. Killeen picked up her beer and her bowl of stew and moved unobtrusively away as they settled at a table near her and called for ale. _Even their closest friends would be intruders right now._

 

Some things, you could only share with the people you shared them with.

 

The door opened again and Cullen came in, brushing snow from his hair. The huge shape of the Iron Bull loomed behind him and a cheer of _Horns up!_ came from the Chargers at the sight of him.

 

As the Bull bellowed something about drinks for everyone, on the house, Cullen scanned the room and then came toward Killeen.

 

She slipped from her seat as he approached but he shook his head, shedding his cloak and taking the seat next to her. “I’ll stay a minute.” He eyed her half-empty bowl with the unmistakable look of a man who’d missed the mess-hall’s last serving, and brightened when Killeen pushed it across to him. “If you’re sure?”

 

“Sure,” Killeen said, and sipped her beer. She indicated the Chargers with a jerk of her chin. “What happened?”

 

“Lyrium smuggling operation,” Cullen said, making short work of her stew. “Venetori. The Inquisitor and the Chargers went out to deal with it in co-operation with some Qunari agents.”

 

Her eyebrows went up. “The Qun are co-operating now?”

 

Cullen shook his head. “No. It went pear-shaped, the Chargers were over-matched. They pulled back rather than die holding their position and the Qun lost a dreadnaught. Any chance of an alliance … it’s gone.”

 

“Well, shit,” Killeen said. “Those big bastards would have come in handy.” She glanced at the Iron Bull, now engaged in a drinking game with the silent mercenary everyone called _Grim_. From what Killeen had seen of him in the Tavern, he might just be able to give the Bull a run for his money. “I guess the Bull is more sentimental than I would have guessed.”

 

“Not his call,” Cullen said, pushing the empty bowl away. “The Inquisitor gave the order. The Alliance wasn’t worth losing the Chargers.”

 

“Andraste’s a—” Cullen gave her a _look_ and Killeen paused, finished: “Arrows. Andraste’s arrows. That’s what comes of civilians making military decisions.”

 

“She’s the Inquisitor, she had every right to make the call.”

 

“Oh, come on, Cullen,” Killeen said. “ _You_ wouldn’t have pulled them out.”

 

He paused, not willing to criticise the Inquisitor, not wanting to lie. Killeen knew very well that in similar circumstances, Cullen would have weighed up the lives of Inquisition soldiers against the lives that would probably be lost later for lack of the support and information the Qun could provide — knew it, because that was exactly the calculation _she_ would have made.

 

_But he doesn’t want to admit she was wrong._

 

Killeen knew she should let it go. There was nothing Cullen could do to recover the situation, not now, and nothing to gain by forcing him to admit what he already knew. _The Inquisitor made a mistake._

 

Nonetheless, she found her mouth open, found herself saying: “You wouldn’t have pulled _me_ out.”

 

Shocked, his gaze met hers. “Kill, that’s …”

 

_True._

 

“Not the same,” he finished, rubbing the back of his neck. “And I might have.”

 

But he couldn’t meet her eyes.

 

“No, you wouldn’t,” Killeen said, wondering why she was doing this. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’d trade off the military needs of the Inquisition for the lives of a dozen soldiers. Look me in the eye and tell me that, Cullen.”

 

He sighed, and looked up, met her gaze squarely. “I wouldn’t have pulled you back, no.”

 

Killeen felt victory and nausea in equal measure. “So.” she said, and sipped her beer.

 

“If only,” Cullen said, “because you’d never forgive me if I took you out of the action before the objective was achieved.”

 

He surprised her in a laugh that loosened the knot in her chest. “That’s true.”

 

“Don’t be too hard on her, Kill. She’s doing the best she can. Better than many would.”

 

“Yes,” Killeen said, because it was what he needed to hear and because, little as she wanted to admit, it was true. “I know.”

 

He gestured to her cup, half rose. “Get you another?”

 

Her eyebrows rose. “ _You’re_ going to have a beer?”

 

“No, but I’m going to watch _you_ drink one,” he said, and went to the bar.

 

Killeen watched him make his way through the crowd, pausing for a word with this soldier, that builder, and let her gaze drift to the Chargers, now singing what sounded to be several different songs simultaneously. She would have been sorry if she’d heard they’d died, laid down their lives for the Inquisition; she was glad they were there, alive, drunk and loud, for all that she knew other people would later die for it.

 

People she didn’t _know_ , people the Inquisitor didn’t know. _That’s the thing, isn’t it?_ That was what separated soldiers like Cullen and herself from civilians like the Inquisitor, however talented they might be. _The ability to remember that losing an objective can cost lives, just as taking one can._

 

And that was what separated cold-hearted, calculating soldiers like herself from women men found warm and yielding and lovable, too.

 

A cup was set in front of her, and Cullen’s brown eyes regarded her quizzically. “Are you —”

 

“ _Thirsty_ ,” Killeen said, and picked up her beer. “Here’s the Chargers. And the Inquisitor.”

 

She tilted the cup to her lips, using it an an excuse not to meet his gaze. 


	18. Beneath The Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Inquisitor dances.

To everyone’s relief, it didn’t come to violence at Halamshiral.

 

The Spymaster had managed to find away to sneak a squad of Inquisition soldiers into the Winter Palace, but no more than a squad, and each and every one of them had been aware as they waited hidden in the secret passageways long ago built into the palace walls that if it came down to a fight, they would be badly outmatched, even with the inclusion of the Inquisitor and her companions on their side.

 

Crouched in the dark, resisting the temptation to check her gear one more time, Killeen had wondered if this would be it – this would be the mission where she would achieve the objective at the cost of her own life.

 

She didn’t consider the possibility that she might not succeed at whatever their task turned out to be. The Commander would not throw them against forces that could crush them unless the objective was absolutely vital. Therefore, they would not fail, even if the last man or woman living had to crawl with broken legs to finish off the last enemy with bare hands and teeth.

 

 Every man and woman there shared the same determination, but still, there were quiet sighs of relief when one of the Spymaster’s scouts slipped through the narrow corridors to tell them that there was to be, after all, no bloodshed: the assassin had been unmasked, her attempt foiled, and she had been taken away in chains.

 

 And, unexpectedly, word from Lady Montilyet: a keg of ale was being breached in courtyard for the guards and servants to drink to the outbreak of peace. As a gesture of goodwill, and to strengthen ties at all levels between the Inquisition and the Empire, Killeen and her squad should join them.

 

“ _One_ drink,” Killeen warned sternly, and led them off.

 

She herself merely wet her lips with the mug she was offered, exchanged smiles and well-wishes with the nearest foreigners, and slipped back out of the crowd to stroll slowly around its perimeter, raising and lowering her mug occasionally to disguise  her careful scrutiny of the Orlesian strangers, her catalogue of exits, her survey of available cover that might conceal, or provide protection from, archers or mages.

 

Looking up, she saw the balcony far above the courtyard. A figure leaned on the railing, gazing outwards – no doubt over the moonlit lake. A flicker of green around the figure’s right hand.  _The Inquisitor._

 

Then the Inquisitor turned, looking back towards the Grand Ballroom, and a beam of moonlight caught the softening of her expression, her welcoming smile.

 

Killian stepped back into the shadows, out of sight of whoever had come to join the Inquisitor.

 

 _Whoever_. She knew very well who it would be, sharing that moment of success with the Inquisitor with the romantic vista of Halamshiral spread before them and the soft strains of a slow waltz drifting out on the warm night air. Could Cullen dance?  _Probably_. And so he would no doubt take the Inquisitor in his arms and they would turn and step across the slick marble, bodies pressed close and then closer still …

 

Killian realised she was uncharitably wishing an unfortunately placed potato peel beneath the Inquisitor’s foot, and gave herself a mental shake by the shoulders.

 

_They are happy, in this moment._

 

_They deserve to be._

 

_**Both** of them._

 

She made herself busy checking on her squad, finding them merry but none noticeably intoxicated, then in another circuit of the garden, just in case.

 

Hurrying footsteps on the stairs behind her made her turn, hand dropping to her sword-hilt, but it was Cullen who came into view around the corner, looking taller and somehow unfamiliar in a dress uniform which showed off the contrast between his broad shoulders and narrow hips to – Killeen crushed that thought firmly.

 

Cullen strode toward Killeen, his face lit with relief.

 

“Ser?” she asked as he took her by the elbow and turned her away from the stairs.

 

“Please tell me there’s something that needs my attention,” he said in a low voice.

 

“No, I –”

 

“ _Kill_ ,” he entreated, cast a glance back toward the stairs, where Killeen saw three young women in ornate Orlesian dress and masks approaching. “They’ve been chasing me all night. _Please_.”

 

It took some considerable effort for Killeen to keep a straight face, but she managed. “There’s a – a problem, Commander,” she said, inventing wildly, “with the – uh – tack. Of the horses.”

 

“That sounds extremely serious, Lieutenant,” Cullen said loudly. “You’d better show me straight away.”

 

The young women showing no signs of retreating, Killeen was forced to lead the way to the stables. Fortunately, the manure scattered across the cobbles and the overwhelming odour of horse was enough to make Cullen’s pursuers hesitate.   

 

She and Cullen ducked in to the first door they passed. After a moment Cullen risked a glance outside. “They’ve gone,” he said, and leaned back against the wall with a sigh of relief.

 

“I’ve seen you take on a Qunari, two dwarves, and a mule simultaneously,” Killeen said. “And the mule was drunk.”

 

“The middle one has a  _mother_ ,” Cullen said. “Lady Montilyet said she was enquiring about my lineage.”

 

“I didn’t know you  _had_ a lineage,” Killeen said. She moved to the nearest stall and leaned over the door, watching a beautiful bay mare lipping chaff from her feedbox. “Don’t suppose you managed to pocket an apple up there with the muckety-mucks?”

 

Cullen joined her, patting his pockets. “I don’t, and I’ve never been more grateful. What had me running was the fact that the mother declared the future mattered more than the past.”  He produced a slightly crumpled pastry. “This do?”

 

Killeen took it. “I’m not going to ask why you have a –“ She studied it. “Cruesser de pain, aren’t these called? in your pocket.”

 

“I was about to eat it when the Inquisitor decided to denounce the Grand Duchess before the whole court,” he said. “Dropping it on the floor didn’t seem to fit Lady Montilyet’s instructions to be on our best behaviour, and I wanted my hands free in case things didn’t go to plan.” He paused. “Also, your accent is appalling.”

 

Killeen broke off a piece of the pastry and offered it to the mare on the flat of her hand. “Picky, picky. I don’t need to be able to speak like Chevaliers to kill them.”

 

“Neither of us need to kill them,” Cullen said. “The Empire has pledged support to the Inquisition’s aims. Material assistance, too.”  As the mare ate the crumb of pastry and nuzzled Killeen’s fingers in search of more, he reached out to run his hand along the glossy neck. “Nice lines.”

 

“She’s a beauty,” Killeen said. “Look at her hocks. Her gait must be like riding on air.”

 

“Only the best for the royal court,” Cullen said.

 

“Poor thing.” Killeen rubbed the mare’s forehead. “Sentenced to a life of walking silly girls around the park.  I’d give my eye-teeth to take you home, but I can’t. Sorry. Perhaps when Commander Cullen marries advantageously you can teach his noble-born off-spring to ride.”

 

Cullen snorted. “Nugs will fly over Val Royeaux, first. Not one of those girls could speak a sensible sentence to save their lives.”

 

“Is that why you were fleeing in such a state of panic? Fear of boredom?”

 

“Fear of being caught by them somewhere without independent witnesses,” Cullen said, and when Killeen gave him a blank look: “It wouldn’t matter whether or not I had proposed marriage, Kill, if a girl and her friends swore I did. For the sake of the Inquisition’s reputation, I’d have to … go through with it.”

 

“ _Maker_ ,” Killeen said, and the mare flicked her ears at the vehemence in Killeen’s voice. “Sorry, my lovely, it’s all right, my darling, I’m sorry. There. There now.”  Careful to keep her voice low, she went on: “It didn’t even occur to me.”

 

“It didn’t occur to me until Lady Montilyet warned me and I’ve been in fear of my life – or at least my future – ever since. Can you imagine spending your life with one of those painted princesses?”

 

“Well, yes,” Killeen said judiciously, “I think she’d be very decorative, and watching her learn to clean armour, mend harness tack, and scrub out latrines would be  _wildly_ entertaining.”

 

Cullen chuckled.  “Somehow, I don’t think it’d work out that way.”

 

“You have  _no_ imagination,” Killeen said. She gave the mare a parting pat, and reluctantly stepped back. “Come on. They should have given up by now, and if they haven’t, I’ll protect you. And the Inquisitor will be wondering where you are.”


	19. In The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which soap and water lead to unexpected consequences

The journey back to Skyhold seemed to go more quickly than their travel to Halamshiral had, although Killeen judged their pace to be about the same, and her bad-tempered gelding’s gait was just as jarring.

 

The cause, she knew, was the easing of the tension that had gnawed at them all on the way there, the relief at a successful and bloodless outcome, the knowledge of a new and powerful ally. The soldiers joked and sang as they rode, and the Inquisitor and her companions were hardly less exuberant.  Varric and Dorian spent nearly eight miles competing to prove who knew the dirtiest joke – winner to be determined by acclamation by the solders  — only to both retire graciously from the field when the Iron Bull produced one involving four Chantry Sisters, the Maker, and a candlestick that had Cullen red to the ears and Cole bemused.  Lady Montilyet spent her ride making furious notes on everything Skyhold needed to entertain in style the Orlesian nobility who would soon be beating a path to their door until the Inquisitor, laughing, plucked her board from her grip, saying _Josie, relax for **five** minutes, please_.

 

Cullen, Killeen determinedly didn’t notice, spent some time riding knee-to-knee with the Inquisitor, their heads together in close converse, after which Cullen wore a small, secret smile for quite some time.  

 

Killeen looked away, and made herself grin at Varric. “I’ve got one,” she said, pitching her voice to carry. “A traveller calls in to an inn and he sees an old man sitting all alone at one of the tables, ignored by everyone else. Being a friendly sort of fellow, he goes over to say hello. What do they call you, he asks. The old man gives him a sour look. I built the local school, he says, but do they call me Richard the school-builder? No. I cleared more than sixty acres of woodland for farming, but do they call me Richard the land-clearer? No.”

 

She milked the old joke for all it was worth, and by the time she reached “just _one_ nug!” to general hilarity, they were riding across the bridge and under the gates of Skyhold.

 

Killeen swung down, dodged her mount’s usual attempt to take a piece out of her shoulder and caught Cullen’s reins as he tossed them to her. She led the two horses off to the stables, willingly turning over the reins of the gelding to one of Master Dennet’s boys. Knowing Cullen’s keen appreciation for his own mount, Killeen took the time to strip off the stallion’s tack herself and check his hooves for stones or splits and his legs for tenderness. Master Dennet himself came to take over the care of the Commander’s mount then, so with a clear conscience Killeen headed for the mess hall and dinner.

 

Then she caught a whiff of the strong odour of horse and horse manure that had been clinging around her person since the Halamshiral stables and was reminded of Dorian’s remarks about soap.

 

Skyhold still did not have, despite Dorian’s constant complaints, a bath-house to the standards of Minrathous, with heated and chilled plunge pools, cascading waterfalls, and semi-naked attendants ready with soap, oil and towels, but they had managed to restore the plumbing to the wash-house behind the laundry, where anyone who felt a quick scrub by the washbasin in their quarters of a morning was insufficient could brave water piped directly from a mountain stream into a tin bath, and a slightly milder version of the harsh laundry carbolic. If one was on very good terms with the laundry mistress, she could sometimes be persuaded to spare a bucket of boiling water from the coppers, which in the winter went a long way toward making washing one’s person merely unpleasant rather than an exercise in survival training.

 

At this hour of the evening, the laundry was deserted, the fires banked. Killeen had second thoughts, but in a confined space the smell did not so much say as shout  _HORSE_ and so, sighing, she lit a candle, pumped water into one of the baths and set about stripping off her armour and riding leathers.

 

The water was above freezing, and that was all that could be said about it. Killeen soaped and scrubbed and sluiced as quickly as she could but more thoroughly than she might have before Dorian’s remarks, and so she was still standing naked in the bath trying to work up enough lather from the soap to make washing her hair more than an exercise in futility when the door to the laundry opened and the draught blew out her candle.

 

She swore under her breath, started to step out of the bath to find and light it in the dark, put one foot on a slick of water produced by her vigorous ablutions, lost her balance, and crashed to the stone floor, bringing the bath with her.

 

For a moment she was too winded and too hurt to even swear, and then managed “Andraste’s freckled arse-cheeks!” in a strangled voice.

 

Footsteps. Cullen’s voice: “Kill, is that you?”

 

_No. No, it’s not me. It’s no-one at all. Go away!_

 

Not that they hadn’t seen plenty of each other, in the forced intimacy of shared facilities and cheek-by-jowl living conditions, but somehow there was a distinct difference between a comrade-in-arms slicing one’s breeches from knee to hip to get a tourniquet on, and _Cullen_ , who had or would soon be embracing the smooth, soft body of a Circle mage, seeing Killeen’s scarred and lanky self grovelling in the altogether in a puddle of water.

 

She thumped her forehead gently on the floor. “Yes.”

 

“Are you all right?”

 

“I knocked over the bath,” she said, and sat up, groping for her clothes in the dark. Her hands touched sopping wet cloth and she swore again, under her breath out of deference to Cullen’s sensibilities. “I’m fine.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yes.” Shivering, Killeen gathered her feet under her, stood up, and trod on the soap. “Mother of —!”

 

The crash when she hit the over-turned bath was resounding and this time, Killeen paid no deference at all to Cullen’s sensibilities.

 

“Because,” Cullen said, and _damn the bastard, I can tell he’s trying not to laugh_ , “you don’t sound all right.”

 

“The candle blew out,” Killeen said, rubbing an aching elbow.

 

“Shall I bring one in?”

 

“I’m —” But there was no reason for her to say it, not really, no reason for one soldier to suddenly discover maidenly modesty in front of another, particularly if they were _friends_ , just _good friends_. “Thank you.”

 

A flickering glow presaged his presence. Killeen studied her scraped elbow to avoid looking at him. Whether his expression held pity, revulsion, or indifference, she didn’t want to see it. The light of the candle Cullen held showed her the sheet she’d appropriated to dry herself, and she grabbed it and began industriously to wring the water from it.

 

“I’ll get you another,” Cullen said, and then, eyeing her clothes: “And something to wear.”

 

His footsteps retreated, returned, and a dry sheet dropped into her lap.

 

“Thanks,” Killeen muttered, stood up, and began to dry herself with more haste than thoroughness.

 

“These are from the hamper,” Cullen said, holding out a shirt and breeches, “but they seem clean enough.”

 

Killeen took them and sniffed suspiciously. No odour, except the faintest trace of perfumed oils. “Dorian’s,” she said, and pulled the shirt over her head.

 

“How can you tell?” Cullen asked with an odd note in his voice. Killeen shrugged one bare shoulder out of the fashionably slashed doublet. “Oh.”

 

She pulled on the breeches, far too short and wide, and finally was able to look at him. “Thanks.”

 

“Why were you trying to bathe in the dark?”

 

“I had a candle.” Killeen gathered up her own sopping clothes. “Until _someone_ let in the wind. What are you doing in the laundry, anyway?”

 

Cullen’s lips twitched up at one corner. “I smell of horse.”

 

Killeen nodded seriously. “Unacceptable, for a Ferelden. It’s got to be dog.”

 

“Well, I’ll go and roll in the kennels after, then.” Unselfconsciously he pulled off his dress-shirt and hung it from one of the pegs on the wall, set the overturned bath upright and began to pump water to fill it. In the candlelight his skin gleamed, pale as cream from the wrists up, the dusting of fair hair on his arms and chest no more than a golden glow in the dimness …

 

Face flaming, Killeen spun around and became very busy finding her boots. “I’ll, uh. Save you something at mess if service closes.”

 

“Don’t bother,” Cullen said. “I grabbed something on the way through.”

 

“Right, well, uh.” Killeen said, and fled.

 

The night air had cooled her cheeks, if not her thoughts, by the time she reached the Great Hall. It was crowded, those who’d been at Halamshiral relaying news to those who had not, and Killeen had to pick her way through the press.

 

An Orlesian accent caught her ear. “But why not?” the woman was saying. “A classical union of noble names!”

 

“ _Most_ appropriate,” her companion agreed. “Has there been an exchange?” At the woman’s titter, he added: “Of gifts, of course.”

 

Killeen stopped dead in her tracks. _Noble names … Ser Rutherford and Lady Trevelyan, of course._

 

_Other people have eyes, too._

 

Until that moment she had not considered what it would be like when Cullen and the Inquisitor’s — _mutual regard_ was a cowardly way to phrase it, even to herself, but it was all Killeen could manage at that moment — became common knowledge: how many gossipy conversations she would have to sit through, amiable interest on her face; how many would assume that _she_ , as Cullen’s closest colleague, would have inside information to share; how much salacious speculation she would have to hear.

 

How utterly unbearable it would be.

 

Someone jostled her, trying to get past, and Killeen came to herself with a start, fled for the stairs down to the cellars where she could take a shortcut to the kitchens and beg a meal she could take to some private corner, alone.

 

She secured herself a hunk of bread with a slice of roast wedged into it, and found a corner of the battlements well aside from the guards’ patrols. She was just about to take her first bite when a quiet voice some little distance away said: “Hello.”

 

Killeen turned. “Hello, Cole.”

 

He stood from his perch on the battlement’s edge and walked toward her, balancing on the narrow ledge as if he strolled across solid earth, despite the whipping wind. “Was that better?”

 

“Yes.” Killeen took a mouthful of her dinner.

 

“He wants to touch more than is allowed, now they’re alone together, but he doesn’t, knows he’ll dream of her tonight, see _her_ instead of the demons. It’s enough, it’s not enough.”

 

Killeen chewed, swallowed. “That’s someone’s private thoughts. We talked about privacy.”

 

“They’re not _your_ thoughts,” Cole said. “Why isn’t touching allowed?”

 

“There’s a time and place,” Killeen said. She took another bite and said with her mouth full: “Bal’onies a’ balls aren’t ‘e place or ‘e ‘ime.”

 

“I didn’t like the ball,” Cole said.

 

“Me neither.”

 

“You liked the horse, though,” Cole said. “Is that private?”

 

“No, that’s fine,” Killeen said. “You would have liked the horse, too. She was beautiful.”

 

“Strong and graceful, lean muscles running beneath the skin, heavy fall of hair on her neck.”

 

“Mane,” Killeen corrected. “On horses, it’s a _mane_.”

 

“Yes,” said Cole. “On horses, it’s a mane.”

 

He stepped off the edge of the battlement and dropped lightly to the walkway below, took two steps and was gone.

 

 

 

 

 


	20. Four In Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone is not bluffing.

It was an important meeting of some sort — that much was clear by the attendees who’d been going in in ones or twos for most the last hour, the majority of the Inquisitor’s companions and advisers — even if it was being held in the tavern and not the war-room.

 

Killeen hesitated outside the closed door, but the dispatch from Crestwood really could not wait. She knocked, knocked louder when there was no answer, and finally opened the door.

 

They were all sitting around the tavern’s largest table, the Inquisitor, Lady Montilyet, Cullen, Varric, the Iron Bull, more.

 

She cleared her throat. “I beg pardon, sers,” she said formally.

 

Cullen looked up, then pushed back from the table as if about to stand. “Well, it looks like you have enough people. I have a thousand things to do.”

 

“Losing money can be both relaxing and habit forming,” Dorian said, and for the first time Killeen saw the cards on the table. “Give it a try.”

 

Varric laughed. “Curly, if any man in history ever needed a hobby, it’s you.”

 

“I’m sure Kill can handle whatever it is,” the Inquisitor said with a glance at Killeen that said _make that true_. “You’ve told me how capable she is.” She smiled at him. “Or was that hyperbole?”

 

“She’s entirely the equal of anything —” Cullen began.

 

The Inquisitor interpreted him. “Good. Then she can take care of whatever problem has brought her here. And you can decide whether you’re going to raise or fold.”

 

Cullen sank back into his seat. “Yes, of course.”

 

“Sers,” Killeen said, with a slight bow, and closed the door behind her.

 

_Maker’s balls, the Inquisitor wants to play **cards** for the day instead of working, and Cullen agrees instead of telling her how wrong she is?_

 

That was unfair, and Killeen knew it was. Morale _was_ work; turning a group of individuals into a team whose bonds of trust and familiarity let them anticipate moves and rely on decisions was part of the deadly serious business of preparation even if it was often best done through jokes and games.

 

_It’s no different from me playing kick-about keep-away with the squad of an afternoon._

 

Resolutely squashing the prickle of resentment at the Inquisitor’s oh-so-clear dismissal — _Off you go. He belongs to **me** , now_ — Killeen headed back to Cullen’s office. The bandits in Crestwood needed more than merely one more patrol, but that would mean retasking a squad from somewhere else. _Unless_ … Killeen scrawled a note to the eager young lad Sutherland who had persuaded the Inquisitor to outfit him and his friends, authorising him to raise militia from Crestwood village, signed Cullen’s name to it, and sent it off.

 

_Done. What’s next?_

 

Methodically, she worked through the piles of parchment and slates that littered the Commander’s desk, noting troop movements and adjusting the disposal of other forces to compensate, sending requests for further information or authorisations for action.

 

Finally, the desk was clear, except for the neat stack of _for information_ papers that Cullen would want to read himself.

 

Killeen looked up and realised it was almost dark.

 

She lit candles and occupied herself tidying up Cullen’s shelves, telling herself she wasn’t listening for the sound of his returning footsteps.

 

When she _did_ hear someone on the stairs, it was not his familiar footfall, but someone far lighter. Killeen was not entirely surprised when the door opened to reveal Fel.

 

“How was school?” she asked.

 

Fel made a face. “Boring,” she said. “All about where you find veridium and stuff.”

 

“I’m sorry you find sourcing essential resources boring, Fel,” Killeen said mildly. “I guess you won’t want to help the Commander and me with the regional requisitions tomorrow, then.”

 

“Not _boring_ exactly,” Fel said hastily. “Just, it took a long time and Adan had to go over it all lots and lots for the dumb kids. _I_ learned it straight away.”

 

“Well, good,” Killeen said. “But don’t call them _dumb_. Some people learn slower than others, or are good at different things.”

 

Fel frowned. “ _You_ call people names,” she pointed out. “I heard you in the training yard yesterday. You called those new soldiers some _really good_ names.”

 

“They’re recruits,” Killeen said. “It’s my job to call them names. Once they’re soldiers, I’ll stop.”

 

“Oh,” Fel said, and Killeen could almost _see_ her filing that away for later consideration. ‘And —”

 

“Shouldn’t you be at dinner?” Killeen interrupted quickly.

 

“Yes!” Fel said. “But the Commander asked me to get his clothes, first.”

 

Killeen blinked. “To get his clothes?” she asked.

 

“Yes! He’s in the bushes behind the tavern and he called out when I went past and asked me to run up here and get his clothes, quick.” Fel paused. “And not to tell anyone. But _you_ don’t count, right?”

 

“Definitely right,” Killeen assured her. “I’ll get them for him. You go on and eat.”

 

Grabbing shirt and breeches from Cullen’s chest in the loft, she jogged down the stairs and around the back of the tavern. “Cullen?” she said quietly.

 

Leaves rustled. “Yes. I, uh.”

 

Killeen tossed the clothes in his direction, resisting the temptation to try and peer through the screening shrubbery. “Lost your shirt?”

 

“And everything else,” Cullen said wryly. “Apparently betting against an Antivan is a very bad idea.”

 

“Cullen, _you_ playing Wicked Grace is a very bad idea,” Killeen said. “Even _Fel_ bluffs better than you do.”

 

“It was Varric’s bad idea,” Cullen said, stepping into view, now decently clothed. “And now I shall have to beg Lady Montilyet for my cloak and armour back. I’m sure she’ll enjoy it immensely.”

 

“Please tell me at least you had a decent hand,” Killeen said.

 

“I had a hand of four,” Cullen said with dignity, beginning to stride toward the stairs.

 

Killeen kept pace. “Four _what_?”

 

“Ducks.”

 

“You went all in on four ducks?” Killeen said incredulously.

 

“I was _sure_ she was bluffing.”

 

“Maker give me strength,” Killeen said. “Of all the soldiers in all the world, I happen to work for the one who thinks four ducks is a winning hand.” She paused. “On the other hand, I suddenly see an opportunity to increase my income. I’ve got a set of cards somewhere, we could …”

 

Cullen laughed. “I may be foolish enough to bet against an Antivan,” he said, opening the door to his office, “but I’m not foolish enough to bet against _you_. Had dinner?”

 

“Not yet,” Killeen said.

 

“Fetch us both a bowl, then, and you can fill me in on whatever fires you’ve had to put out today.”

 

“Your whim is my command, ser,” Killeen said. She turned toward the door, turned back: “Look on the bright side?”

 

Cullen was already pulling the stack of parchments toward him. “Bright side of public humiliation?”

 

“Bright side,” Killeen said firmly. “Now you can stop wearing that ridiculous cloak without having to admit I was right all along.”

 

Deftly, she shut the door on his response, and headed toward the mess hall, shaking her head.

 

_Four ducks. Of **course** he went all in on four ducks._

 

_Good thing Corypheus doesn’t know how hard our military commander will bluff on a weak hand._

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered having Killeen actually play, but that seemed a bit ‘the ensign who plays chess with Spock’ — in the game, it’s the Inquisitor, Companions and Advisers, we don’t see Adan or Sutherland or whoever.


	21. As The Candle Burns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a certain secret is revealed, and another one kept.

 

Skyhold was abuzz with talk of it: Warden Blackwall , the story went, was neither Blackwall nor a Warden, but a fugitive criminal named Thomas Ranier, a mercenary, a brigand, and a murderer.

 

Killeen stopped the first conversation she overheard on the topic with a sharp reminder not to spread baseless gossip, stopped the second too, but by the time she’d heard the same story from eight or ten different people, the remarkable consistency in their accounts began to sow a seed of doubt.

 

_Gossip spreads faster than nits, true. But gossip tends to change with every teller._

 

_When a dozen people are telling the same story, it’s usually better described as news._

 

_And Blackwall **is** gone._

 

 Killeen kept an eye out for Dorian, or Varric, or someone else she might reasonably ask about what was going on as she went from storeroom to kitchens to stables to quartermaster, but the only person of any seniority she encountered was the Lady Vivienne, and there was no curiosity in the world strong enough to prompt her to address the cool, sophisticated,  _lethal_ Madame de Fer unbidden.

 

 Her curiosity went unanswered, then, until she slipped into Cullen’s office after the evening meal. He was standing by his desk, hands braced against it, staring at a report as if it would think again and alter itself under the force of his glare.

 

 “Is it true about Blackwall?” Killeen asked bluntly.

 

 Cullen sighed, and rubbed his eyes with one hand.  “Yes. He’s not Blackwall, has _never been_ Blackwall. He got away with it, too, would have kept on getting away with it if he hadn’t turned himself in to save one of his men from execution.”

 

Killeen fetched another couple of candles from the chest, and lit them, one by one, from the single light he’d been attempting to read by.  _Another hold-over from a straightened childhood._  “Well, thank the Maker we’re not facing an archdemon, then.”

 

“You are,” Cullen said, with a sideways glance, “the most unutterably pragmatic woman I have ever known. Everyone’s asking  _how could he_  and  _what should we do_ and the first thing you think of is the problem of fighting a Blight without any Grey Wardens.”

 

“ _Someone_ has to have a good grasp of essentials,” Killeen said. “What’s she going to do?”

 

Cullen sank into his chair. “About hypothetical archdemons, or about Thomas Ranier?”

 

“ _Does_ she have a plan for the archdemons?” Killeen asked.

 

Cullen shook his head. “And she hasn’t decided on a plan of action for Ranier. We can use the Inquisition’s resources to retrieve him, if she choses.”

 

“Then make sure she does,” Killeen said.

 

Cullen looked up at her. “You admire what he did, too,” he said. “After all this time, knowing he was safe, being willing to give up his life.”

 

“I don’t give a nug’s nut for what he did,” Killeen said. “Darkspawn magister from the dawn of time, remember? Bigger fish to fry. If she thinks he should hang for what he did, hang him _after_.”

 

“Thanks for saving the world, now off to the gallows with you?” Cullen suggested with a slight smile. “Seems a little heartless for Lady Trevelyan.”

 

Killeen plunged straight past the fact that it was the first time he’d ever referred to the Inquisitor in less than exquisitely formal terms. “Then tell her she can _redeem_ him. Tell her whatever she needs to hear, you’d know better than me. This is not a fight we can win with one hand behind our backs. This is going to take both hands, and both feet, and probably teeth and eye-gouging before the end.”

 

Cullen grinned at her. “I can see you eye-gouging Corypheus.”

 

“He’s tall,” Killeen said judiciously, letting him turn the subject. “You’d have to give me a leg-up.”

 

“I saw something like that, once,” Cullen said. “Two dwarfs head-butting a big mercenary called … Wolf-something, I think.”

 

“Wolf-tooth,” Killeen said, hooking over a stool and settling in for the story. “I remember him. Claimed to be part Qunari.”

 

“Which was nonsense, of course. Anyway, it all started when …”

 

It was, for a small space of time, the way it had always been: just the two of them, trading stories, reminding each other of the details of the fights they’d shared, as the candles burned down and all around them the fortress settled in to night.

 

Then a knock at the door brought a messenger, and the illusion disappeared.

 

Cullen scanned the message, frowning. “Get the squad leaders,” he said to the man, who nodded and went off at a run. Killeen held out her hand for the paper and Cullen gave it to her. “We’ve got a lead on the Red Templar’s main source of lyrium.”

 

Killeen scanned the page. “Sahrnia, that’s Emprise Du Lion, isn’t it?”

 

“Yes,” Cullen said. “We’ve had reports of a heavy concentration of Red Templars in the area and now we know why. We haven’t the forces to take them on head-to-head but we need to be ready to push into the area as soon as the Inquisitor needs.”

 

Running footsteps outside, then, and the room quickly became crowded. Cullen spread out the map of Emprise Du Lion, long fingers stabbing at locations of strategic significance, ordering squads _here_ and _here_. “Rylen’s men will monitor the situation,” he ordered, and at Rylen’s crisp acknowledgement: “In the meantime, we’ll send soldiers to —”

 

Bent over the map herself, Killeen heard the door open again to admit a latecomer, waited for a blistering comment from Cullen on tardiness.

 

Instead, after the briefest of pauses, he went on mildly: “— assist with the relief effort."

 

Killeen looked up, and met the gaze of the Inquisitor, leaning against the wall by the door, a small smile on her pretty face.

 

“That will be all,” Cullen said, giving Killeen a sideways look that meant _You, too._

 

“Ser,” she said briskly, turned on her heel, and went out with the others.


	22. In The Early Morning Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen learns something.

 

 

 

Cullen shut the door, and Killeen found herself standing on the walkway, with no idea of where to go. Her quarters, to sit alone, to try not to think about Cullen and the Inquisitor — _no_. The mess-hall? The tavern? Rylen and the others would have spread the gossip by now, and Killeen did not think she could listen to whatever ribald speculation or romantic fancies would be running through Skyhold right now.

 

Aware she was stopped dead in full view of anyone passing and no doubt making a spectacle of herself, Killeen took a step, took another, kept walking without any thought of where her feet took her.

 

Found herself standing before the statue of Andraste in the chapel off the garden.

 

“I don’t know why everyone feels so sorry for you,” she said aloud to the indifferent stone face. “He _loved_ you.”

 

“To be loved does not heal all life’s hurts,” a gentle voice said behind her. Killeen turned, feeling herself blush a little, to see Mother Giselle standing by the door, hands folded before her, regarding Killeen with kindness. “Most especially, I sometimes think, in Andraste’s case.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Killeen mumbled. “I didn’t mean to — I’m sorry. I know she … died and everything.”

 

“We all die,” Mother Giselle said, coming to Killeen’s side and looking up at Andraste thoughtfully. “That was not what I meant. I have wondered, from time to time, if the Maker’s love, even for his Bride, is of the same kind as the love so many seek.”

 

Feeling out of her depth, Killeen ventured: “It’s supposed to be _better_ , isn’t it?”

 

“Is it?” Mother Giselle asked. “Would you trade the love you so long for, if it was yours, for something different?”

 

“I don’t —” Killeen started, but Mother Giselle’s eyes were kind and very, very wise. “No. No, I wouldn’t.”

 

“I wonder if Andraste longed for the same kind of love as mortal men and women know, a love that finds its roots in our shared fragility, a love that is a defiance of the limits upon us, rather than their absence.” Mother Giselle sighed, and stooped to adjust a candle that was beginning to gutter. “Perhaps she would understand what you feel, all too well, no? If that were the case.”

 

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Killeen said, low and desperate over the threat of tears. “I couldn’t _stand_ it if …”

 

“Of course not, my child,” Mother Giselle assured her. She held out her hand to Killeen. “My knees are not what they used to be. Can I prevail on you to assist me to kneel?”

 

“Of course.” Killeen took the dark fingers, the old woman’s papery skin soft against the callouses on her own palm, and carefully balanced her as the Reverend Mother sank to her knees. Then, because it seemed beyond impolite to either remain standing or leave Mother Giselle to try to get up on her own, she sank down on one knee before the statue herself.

 

“Oh Maker, hear my cry,” Mother Giselle said quietly. “Guide me through the blackest nights, steel my heart against the temptations of the wicked, make me to rest in the warmest places.” She paused. “Do you know this one?”

 

“Not _all_ of it,” Killeen had to admit in embarrassment. “I, um. Probably don’t … as much as I should.” _Or at all._

 

“Go on with what you know, then.”

 

 Clearing her throat, Killeen began self-consciously: “My Creator, judge me whole: find me well within Your grace, touch me with fire that I be cleansed. Tell me I have sung to Your approval — for You are the fire at the heart of the world, and comfort is only Yours to give.”

 

“Why did that verse stick in your memory?” Mother Giselle asked softly. “Of all of them.”

 

Killeen glanced at her. “I don’t know, it just did.”

 

The other woman reached up one finger and gently touched the scar that bisected Killeen’s eyebrow and skipped down to her cheekbone to join the others there. “Do you think this makes you no longer _whole_?”

 

“I — perhaps.” Killeen said.

 

“The mages who work with the healers could remove it, you know.”

 

“I know,” Killeen said.

 

“But you do not ask them to.” Mother Giselle paused. “Because if you did, perhaps, and this man you wish to love you _still_ did not, you would no longer have a reason to hide behind.”

 

“I _know_ he still wouldn’t,” Killeen said. “That’s not — it’s —” She groped for the words. “It’s _my_ face. An abomination tried to rip my face off, nearly managed it. I thought I’d lost the eye. I still managed to get my sword up and spit it like a chicken. I _earned_ this face, ugly as it is.”

 

“Is that what you think?” Mother Giselle asked.

 

“That I earned it? Maker’s blood, yes.”

 

“That you are ugly.”

 

Killeen laughed, and it was small harsh sound in the chapel’s hush. “Look at the Inquisitor, and look at me. Look at Pavus, and look at me. Look at —” _Cullen_. She fell silent.

 

“You are scarred,” Mother Giselle said, “by the wounds you have taken, and survived. Your hands are calloused from wielding weapons, day after day, your body shaped by the work you do defending the innocent. What else can I call that, but beauty?”

 

“You see things differently to other people, then,” Killeen said.

 

“Perhaps,” Mother Giselle said. “Perhaps not. Listen, now, and I will teach you the verse you have forgotten.” Her voice lifted almost in song. “My Maker, know my heart. Take from me a life of sorrow, lift me from a world of pain. Judge me worthy of Your endless pride.”    
  
Killeen repeated the words, over and over again until Mother Giselle was satisfied she had got them right. _Know my heart … judge me worthy._ When the tears filled her eyes, she had to admit to herself that it was not the Maker to whom she addressed that plea.

 

A boot scraped the threshold behind her and Killeen blinked hard, and turned. A messenger stood there, and to her surprise the sky behind him was softening into the velvet blue of pre-dawn light.

 

“Apologies,” the messenger said. “I wouldn’t have interrupted you here, but —”

 

Thoughts flying to any one of a dozen possible emergencies, Killeen stood, helped Mother Giselle to rise. “What is it?”

 

“I’m not sure, just that you’re needed at the stables, right away.”

 

_Maker, a horse foundered? An outbreak of stable rot? Andraste’s tits, we can’t afford to be understrength on mounts, not with half our forces leaving for Emprise Du Lion at first light._

 

“Mother, please excuse me, I must —”

 

“Go,” Mother Giselle bade her gently. “Perhaps I will see you here again, another time.”

 

“Perhaps,” Killeen temporised, and went.

 

She could see quite a crowd around the stable-yard as she turned the corner from the stairs. Striding forward, she forced her way through it, relaxing a little as their faces and bearing told her that, whatever had their attention, it wasn’t causing alarm.

 

Spotting Cullen leaning on the stable-yard rail, she pushed in beside him, realising too late that he had been standing beside the Inquisitor and now Killeen was between them. For a heartbeat she considered stepping back, going around to his other side, but there was no way to do so casually _and it will probably just make this even more awkward._

 

“What’s going on?” she said instead.

 

“See for yourself,” Cullen said with a jerk of his chin.

 

Killeen looked. Master Dennet was working a horse on a long rein, not an unusual sight, a glossy bay mare with a stride like silk, and a spring in her step that said clear as words _enough of this nonsense, I want to **run**._

 

 _He told her_ , Killeen thought, _he told her about the beautiful bay mare and of course, she wanted her._

 

It was ridiculous to feel betrayed. She could never have even _dreamed_ of having that mare for herself, she had lost nothing.

 

Except the memory of those quiet moments in the stable in Halamshiral, that had belonged to her and Cullen alone.

 

“She’s a beauty,” the Inquisitor said happily. “Took no harm from the journey, Dennet says.”

 

“I’m glad,” Killeen said.

 

“Do you want to try her?” Cullen said.

 

Killeen waited for the Inquisitor to answer, and then realised Cullen was looking at _her_. Her stomach turned. _Did he really not know how much I loved her? I can read every flicker of expression on his face, the tightening of his eyes that says he has a headache, the twitch that says he wants to laugh but doesn’t think it would be proper … and he knows me not at all._

 

_Or simply doesn’t think to care._

 

“No,” she said.

 

Cullen’s face fell. “Oh,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, ah. I suppose it’s better to let her rest a little before … yes.”

 

“I _think_ ,” the Inquisitor said, and there was amusement in her voice, “that Kill doesn’t want to ride someone _else’s_ horse.”

 

“ _Oh_.” Cullen said in a completely different tone. “Yes. That would be a terrible idea.” He grinned. “I’d never suggest _that_. But I do think it’s an excellent idea for Kill to try out her _own_ horse.”

 

Killeen gaped at him as he becked Master Dennet over, and the horse-master slowed the mare, gathered in the rein and led her towards them.

 

“ _My_ horse?” Killeen asked.

 

“Her name, apparently, is Firefly,” Cullen said as the mare nosed his pockets through the fence, and then butted him in the chest, betraying the fact that he’d obviously been speeding their acquaintance along with food. Cullen laughed, and reached up to scratch the mare’s ears. “There, now, beautiful girl,” he said tenderly, “there now, my darling.”

 

“ _My_ horse?” Killeen heard herself repeat. _This is a dream. It’s a lovely dream, and I don’t want to wake up from it, but it has to be a dream._ Yet surely no dream would have included the pungent odour of manure, or the fact that the Inquisitor had ink under one fingernail, or the tiny scar, unseen in the dim light of Halamshiral stables, on the back of Firefly’s left ear.

 

“ _Your_ horse,” the Inquisitor confirmed. “She’s no charger, but she’ll speed you on any errands you need to run, and if I recall correctly you prefer to fight afoot anyway.” She smiled. “As do I. Much more sensible, in my opinion.”

 

Killeen reached out one hand tentatively, felt warm, solid horseflesh beneath her fingers. “She’s —”

 

“Beautiful,” Cullen said softly, as the mare turned her head and began to investigate this new person for possible tidbits.

 

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Killeen said, feeling her eyes fill with tears and not caring. “She’s perfect. She’s perfect.”

 

One of Master Dennet’s boys brought a saddle and Killeen noted that Firefly stood quietly while they tacked her up, no tricks or bad habits.

 

“She’s not too tired, is she?” she asked the horse-master. “I can wait, if she is.”

 

“She’s come up slow all the way,” Master Dennet assured her. “We’ll give her a few days pasture after this, and don’t be putting her over any fences, but she’s sound.”

 

He held the mare’s head himself as Killeen slipped through the fence, set her foot in the stirrup and swung up to Firefly’s back. “Hello, girl,” she said quietly, and ears swivelled to catch her voice. “Shall we walk a little?”

 

Firefly was willing to walk, but wanted to run, and at Master Dennet’s nod, Killeen loosened the reins a little and let the mare pick up the pace, sending her around the inside of the fence and then through figures of eight. _I was right,_ she thought, _it i **s** like riding on air._ The mare answered the slightest touch to the reins, the lightest pressure of her heels, precise in her turns, easy in her gait.

 

She slowed Firefly to a walk well before _either_ of them wanted to stop, but she would not risk this horse, not even slightly. Dismounting, she sought and received Dennet’s permission to stable and care for the mare herself, and led the mare over to Cullen and the Inquisitor once more.

 

“Thank you,” she said to the Inquisitor.

 

“Thank Cullen,” the Inquisitor said. “It was his idea. I just …” She wiggled her fingers. “Facilitated. In an Inquisitorial sort of manner.”

 

Cullen looked at the ground, rubbing the back of his neck. “It seemed, ah. We can’t have my second-in-command without a worthy mount.”

 

“ _Worthy_ ,” Killeen said fervently. “I’ll try to be worthy of _her_.”

 

“Don’t sell yourself short,” the Inquisitor said, laughing. “Come on, Cullen. Kill wants to be alone with her horse — and I want breakfast.”

 

With a last glance at Firefly, the Commander obeyed, and turned to go. Killeen watched them make their way through the crowd, then led the mare back to the stable. She still could not quite believe it was real, that Firefly was hers, to ride whenever she liked, this gorgeous, graceful creature who responded so willingly and perfectly to every signal of her rider. It was inconceivable that the Inquisitor would have spent so freely on a horse for a mere Lieutenant to ride.

 

She stopped, until a nudge from Firefly’s nose got her moving again. _Inconceivable, except of course, to please Cullen. Because she feels for him what he feels for her._

 

And Cullen, knowing how much Killeen had yearned for the mare when she had seen her, knowing too that as he and the Inquisitor grew closer, he and Killeen would inevitably grow apart, and being a good man, a good friend — wanting to give her this one thing.

 

To say _thank you, for everything._

 

To say _good-bye._

 

Firefly nuzzled her again, looking for treats. Killeen patted her nose, and then flung her arms around the glossy neck.

 

“My darling,” she whispered, and the mare’s ears flicked to listen although she stood like a rock. “My heart, my beautiful, glorious man. Thank you. Be happy. Please, be happy.”

 

Firefly turned to nose Killeen’s shoulder, snorting at the dampness on her neck.

 

Killeen sniffed, blinked, and wiped her face on her sleeve. “Sorry,” she told the mare. “That was a bit silly of me, wasn’t it? I promise, I’m not like this normally. From now on — ”

 

She couldn’t finish, the future suddenly yawning in front of her, a future of watching Cullen with the Inquisitor, hearing about Cullen and the Inquisitor, no doubt attending the _wedding_ of Cullen and the Inquisitor.

 

Killeen swallowed. “From now on,” she said firmly, “you, Firefly, will have no competition for my attention.” 


	23. On The Field

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things get dirty (but not like *that*).

Things stayed normal, for a while.

 

Killeen knew it was only because the Inquisitor was away, tracing down the lead on Samson in Emprise Du Lion, but that it was borrowed time made it sweeter. She found herself ridiculously, absurdly happy at foolish things like watching Cullen invariably sip his tea before adding honey, grimace, and reach for the pot; or at watching him waste time trying to sharpen a pen nib that had long since passed the point of usability; or on the rare mornings when they could both escape the press of messages and reports and go out riding, Firefly and Cullen’s stallion Steelheart pulling at the reins until their riders gave them their heads and let the horses race each other along the long, flat plateau to Skyhold’s north.

 

The reports came in regularly from Sahrnia — records found at the quarry, including some letters signed by Samson himself. Cullen read them, lips thinning, let them drop and went out to thrash a training dummy or an unwary sparring partner afterwards.

 

Killeen picked them up and read them herself, reading of Templars no longer able to remember their officers from one day to the next, reading of pain that needed unlimited elfroot, of suffering, of faces changing until they were no longer recognisable.

 

_Men he knew, served with, trained with._

 

_Men he could have been, if Cassandra had not persuaded him._

 

She let him beat the stuffing out of her in the training ring, _better me than someone who doesn’t know why._

 

He stopped, when it was Killeen, once he had her on the ground and weaponless.

 

Some days, she wasn’t sure that he would have, if it had been anyone else.

 

At least it left him able to sleep. With the Inquisitor away, Killeen had resumed her old habit of sleeping on a bedroll in his loft, waking instantly when Cullen’s mutters or groans betrayed the dreams that seemed to plague him even more.

 

They were different, too — not that he ever spoke of them, or she ever asked. But his cries of _please, don’t_ had changed to _I won’t … I won’t!_

 

Killeen wanted to reassure him _you’d never have become like them_ but she knew it wasn’t true. Red lyrium wasn’t a character flaw or a moral failing — it was a poison.

 

She found an excuse after the lunch hour one day, a book from the library that might shed light on Samson’s plans, and cornered Dorian in his alcove. “Is there a cure for red lyrium?”

 

“A cure?”

 

“It’s a poison,” Killeen pointed out. “Most poisons have antidotes.”

 

“Unlikely,” Dorian said. “But the dwarfs would know more.”

 

“Ask them,” Killeen said.

 

“Is this …” Dorian asked and, uncharacteristically, paused. “Is this a personal question? Do you know …?”

 

 _Someone who has become a mindless homicidal manic,_ was the rest of that sentence. Killeen made herself smile. “No.” _Not **me**._ “But if we could drop some kind of antidote in their camps, in the water supply maybe …”

 

Dorian nodded. “I’ll ask Varric,” he said. “We’ll find out.”

 

On her way back to Cullen’s office, Killeen almost tripped over a young man in what she vaguely recognised as Imperial heraldry, as he lurked — and there was no other word for it — in the upper courtyard.

 

She made a rapid calculation based on the symbols embossed on his armour, the estimated cost of said armour, and how carefully he’d shaved, and saluted. “Ser. Apologies.”

 

“Not at all,” the man said, and offered his hand. “Ser Michel de Chevin, at your service, mademoiselle.”

 

“Lieutenant Killeen Hanmount,” Killeen said, giving him her hand, expecting him to shake it.

 

Instead, he bowed over it with a flourish, pressed his lips briefly to her knuckles. “Charmed,” he said, straightening.

 

Killeen regarded him with bemusement. “Hello?” she ventured.

 

“I have sworn my service to the Inquisition,” de Chevin said. “I await the Inquisitor’s orders.”

 

“Excellent,” Killeen said, trying and failing to retrieve her hand. “I’m sure she —”

 

“Is far too busy at the moment, yes, I know.” He smiled, and Killeen had to admit, it was a charming smile. “But I would wish be useful, even so, and I hear from all those I talk to, you are the woman who can make that happen.”

 

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Killeen said.

 

“Oh, I’m _entirely_ sure that’s true,” de Chevin said, and yes, it was definitely charming. "So you will remember, no? That I am waiting my chance to serve, when the question arises.”

 

“I’ll remember,” Killeen said, managed to reclaim her hand, and made her escape.

 

It was not the only time she found herself cornered by the chevalier — indeed, after a few days she began to feel as if he might be _waiting_ for her, in the courtyard, or the mess-hall, or the tavern, always with a ready smile and a courtly compliment.

 

“Who is that man?” Fel asked, trotting behind Killeen on the way to Cullen’s office after Killeen had extricated herself from one such encounter.

 

“He’s a knight from Orlais,” Killeen said. “He works for the Inquisition too. Like you and I do.”

 

“I don’t like him,” Fel said firmly.

 

Killeen opened the door. Cullen was at his desk, and he raised a hand in a give me a moment gesture, went on writing. Killeen turned to Fel. “Why not, honey?”

 

“He asks too many questions.”

 

Cullen finished his missive, folded and sealed it. “Who’s asking you questions, Fel?”

 

“Michel de Chevin,” Killeen explained. “Questions about Skyhold, Fel? About the Inquisition?” _About troop strength, supplies?_

 

They had already had more than one spy, and Cullen was watching Fel with the same alert interest Killeen felt.

 

“No,” Fel shook her head. “Stupid questions. Not real ones.”

 

“Such as …?” Cullen asked.

 

Fel sighed. “What’s Kill’s favourite flower, what’s her favourite food, does she have any family, is she married,” she rattled off rapidly. “Stuff like that.”

 

Cullen rubbed the back of his neck. “I see. Not exactly matters of great strategic importance, then.”

 

“I would have come straight and told you if they were _real_ questions,” Fel pointed out.

 

“He’s been pestering me to get sent out on assignment,” Killeen said. “We’ve nothing suitable, at the moment, but he obviously thinks I’ll magically discover something if he gets on my good side.”

 

“Oh, I think we can find somewhere _suitable_ to send the good chevalier,” Cullen said. “I’m sure Harding could use an extra body in the Hissing Wastes.”

 

Killeen laughed. “I’m not sure _anyone_ is quite _that_ keen to serve the Inquisition.”

 

“I don’t like him,” Fel said again. “You _should_ send him away, Ser Bear.”

 

“Your advice is noted,” Cullen said with grave courtesy, and Fel turned pink with pride.

 

“As is,” Killeen said, because it did not do to let Fel get too pleased with herself, especially if one was the person spending much of the day in Fel’s company, “the state of your tunic. What did you do, roll all the way here?”

 

Fel looked down at herself. “No. We were playing kick-about keep-away and I … didn’t. Two of the big boys landed on me. I didn’t cry, though!”

 

“ _Which_ of the big boys?” Killeen demanded, and when Fel named two adolescents who Killeen very well knew to be bullies and young thugs in training, set her jaw. “I think perhaps I shall have a _word_.”

 

“No!” Fel said. “You can’t!”

 

“No, you can’t, Kill,” Cullen agreed. “Remember what it was like, when someone tattled to an adult?”

 

“I’m certainly not going to do _nothing_ ,” Killeen said. “They’re both far too big to be playing with the younger kids. Someone is going to get hurt.”

 

“Oh, I don’t suggest we do _nothing_ ,” Cullen said, and smiled.

 

And so it was that in the hour before the dinner bell, the Commander of the Inquisition and his second-in-command were in the lower courtyard, stripped to their shirts and breeches, engaged in the life-or-death matter of getting a ball of knotted rags between two sacks, with the encouragement and dubious assistance of an assortment of the keep’s smaller urchins.

 

Out of fairness, of course, they were on opposing teams, and as Killeen gathered her little troops around her for some quick pointers on the importance of situational awareness she could see Cullen at the other end of the field giving, no doubt, much the same lecture.

 

Then he looked over at her, and grinned. “You can forfeit now, if you like,” he called. “Save time.”

 

“Oh no,” Killeen said. “Who’s going to win, team?”

 

“We are!” piped a dozen tiny voices, and Fel added: “We’re going to _crush_ them.”

 

It was not exactly the sort of game Killeen was used to playing. The players occasionally ran in the wrong direction, frequently got in each other’s way, and were as likely to get the ball through their own goal as through their opponents’. They tackled each other, and Killeen and Cullen, with great enthusiasm but lesser technique, and occasional rolling piles of players developed — sometimes while the ball was entirely elsewhere. Killeen had to turn away to hide her laughter at the sight of Cullen standing patiently with two little boys clutching his knees ferociously, trying to explain that yes, it was a good tackle, but usually it was not necessary to tackle one’s own team captain. Cullen didn’t even try to pretend that the sight of Killeen going down beneath the combined weight of the entire opposing team was less than hilarious.

 

By the end of the hour, though, they had managed to impart at least a few useful basics to the children: how to tackle someone bigger (in Cullen’s case, much bigger) than yourself without getting hurt, for example; and how to get the ball away to another player well before your opponents were in a position to tackle you.

 

 _Well, we’ll work on scoring goals next time_ , Killeen thought, as the horde raced off to wash their hands before dinner.

 

“Now _you_ look as if you’ve rolled the length of the courtyard,” Cullen said with a smile.

 

Killeen glanced at her shirt, gave a pointed look at his own. “Pot, kettle, and so on.” Then, on impulse, she dropped the ball back to the ground, took one short step and sent it down the field towards Cullen’s team’s goal. “Best of three for who buys drinks tonight?” she said.

 

Cullen spun on his heel and charged after the ball, tossing “You’re on” back over his shoulder.

 

She caught up with him, not quite soon enough, swore as he scored. The second one went to her when she managed to fool him with a feint and give herself a clear run.

 

She was not so lucky the third time, lost the ball to him, got it back, lost it again. A short, ferocious battle ensued, elbows and knees in play, and then Killeen broke free, sent the ball up the field and ran after it, hearing Cullen close behind her.

 

Reaching the ball, she checked her stride, kicked — and Cullen’s arms closed around her waist and his weight bore her to the ground.

 

She landed with an _ouff_ as the impact drove the air from her lungs, raised her head and, seeing the ball safely between the sacks that marked Cullen’s goal, gave a triumphant wheeze.

 

“Damn,” Cullen said, seeing the same thing, and rolled off her to lie on his back in the mud. He felt tenderly at his ribs. “Ow. You’ve got sharp elbows.”

 

Killeen laughed, and Cullen turned his head to grin at her. For the first time in days, she could see no lines of strain around his eyes, no tightness to his mouth. He looked entirely relaxed, almost young, as if he could be any yeoman farmer with the day’s labour behind him and nothing before him but ale and a meal and a night’s sweet sleep.

 

“We should do this again,” she said impulsively.

 

“We should,” Cullen said softly.

 

Then a messenger’s voice came from the stairs, and Cullen got to his feet in one smooth movement, raised an arm to beckon the man over, once more the Commander of the Inquisition.

 


	24. Between The Sheets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, unexpected nudity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that the rating has changed and the tag on archive warnings is now 'author chose not to use' - if you haven't, please notice! It's changed for a reason, and without being spoilery-specific and adding heaps of tags (like Story Includes Death Of Family Pet, Dangerous Driving, Death of Child, Reanimation, Horror, Zombies, And Now You Don't Really Need To Read Pet Semetary) the contents of upcoming chapters deal with difficult topics including the damage that people can do to themselves and each other, also, sexual situations.

“This is a job for the Chargers,” Cullen said, studying a report.

 

“I’ll tell the Bull,” Killeen said.

 

Cullen stood. “I’ll come with you,” he said. “I want to ask him about these rumours of Qunari troop movements, and I’ve barely been outside of this room in daylight all week.”

 

It was just after sunrise, and the weather was, for once, almost reasonable, although the breeze was chill. Locals had been talking about ‘spring’ for weeks and for the first time, Killeen began to believe they might be other than deluded.

 

She paused to look out over the valley, straining to see if the snow had receded at all, and was thus a few steps behind Cullen when he opened the door of the Iron Bull’s room.

 

“Sorry to disturb your rest,” he said, eyes on the report he held, “but there’s —” Then he flinched back as if he’d walked in on a blood mage ritual. “Oh sweet _Maker_!”

 

Alarmed, Killeen began to hurry forward but Cullen shook his head at her urgently, and from inside the room she heard the Iron Bull’s deep voice say casually: “Cullen. How’s it goin’?”

 

“Is the Iron Bull awake?” Lady Montilyet asked from behind Killeen. “I thought perhaps we —” She reached the door of the room. “Oh - ah - I - ”

 

Still turned away from the door, eyes fixed on the walkway, Cullen stammered: “I’m … so. _Sorry_.”

 

“I cannot move my legs!” Lady Montilyet announced in a stunned tone.

 

Lady Cassandra strode past Killeen. “Is something the matt — _aah_!”

 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” the Iron Bull said, and another, indistinct, man’s voice muttered something that sounded similarly exasperated.

 

Cassandra turned to Cullen. “Do you see this?” she demanded.

 

“No.” Cullen said firmly, gaze still averted.

 

“So, I take it —” Cassandra started to say.

 

The Iron Bull interrupted her. “Actually, _he’s_ the one who’s been taking it.”

 

That, and Cullen’s not-quite-muffled laugh, gave Killeen a more complete picture of what the three had walked in on.

 

“I apologise for interrupting,” Cassandra said.

 

“Nothing wrong with having a bit of fun,” Cullen supplied helpfully, still with a hint of laughter in his voice.

 

“Who wouldn’t be a _little_ curious?” Lady Montilyet’s tone held, Killeen thought, a certain curiosity of her own.

 

“We’ll leave you be,” Cullen said, ushering the two women from the doorway.

 

“Yes. Do enjoy yourselves,” Lady Montilyet said, having apparently recovered her diplomatic aplomb.

 

Cullen firmly shut the door, with the three of them on the outside of it.

 

“Can you believe …?” Cassandra said.

 

“I know!” Lady Montilyet’s eyes were wide. “I mean, of course, when you think about it, it’s only natural …” Her hands made a vague, but unmistakable gesture.

 

“They’re all that big,” Killeen said helpfully, and at the look on the other two women’s faces, “Kirkwall, remember?”

 

“Did _you_ ever …?” Cassandra asked, sounding both fascinated and appalled.

 

“Void, _no_ ,” Killeen said. “You’d walk funny for a week.”

 

“I feel certain _Dorian_ will be doing so,” Cassandra said. “And now, if you excuse me, I may seek out the demon Cole. There are some details of that scene it would be a mercy to forget.”

 

“I shall also take my leave,” Lady Montilyet said. “I feel sure the Inquisitor will require a complete report.”

 

Cullen waited until the two women had turned the corner of the stairs before he leaned back against the battlement and began to laugh. “Oh, _Maker_ ,” he chuckled. “I never thought I’d see Josephine startled out of composure.” He mimicked her accent. “I cannot move my legs!”

 

“Her _face_ ,” Killeen said, laughing as well. “ _Your_ face.”

 

“ _Cassandra’s_ face!” Cullen said.

 

“I couldn’t see Cassandra’s face.”

 

“Like this,” Cullen said, narrowed his eyes to the Nevarran’s habitual steely stare and then mimed wide-eyed shock, doubling Killeen over with laughter. “Do _enjoy_ yourselves,” Cullen snorted. “As if it was a _tea party_.”

 

“I’m … so. _Sorry_ ,” Killeen said in her best ‘Cullen’ voice.

 

“Some things no-one should see unprepared,” Cullen said. “Although they might have locked the door.”

 

“You might have knocked,” Killeen pointed out.

 

“I most certainly shall in future,” Cullen said with such fervour that Killeen began to laugh again.

 

For the rest of the day, all Killeen had to say was “I’m … so. _Sorry_ ,” or Cullen, “Do _enjoy_ yourselves”, to have them both helpless with laughter.

 

At least, that was, until further grim reports came in from Emprise Du Lion, a dying Red Templar speaking of the unendurable pain red lyrium caused. Cullen read it, grimacing, read it again.

 

 _Perhaps someone he knew,_ Killeen thought.

 

There was no joke that would help, here. “I’m going to fetch lunch,” she said quietly.

 

“I’m not hungry,” Cullen said.

 

“I know,” Killeen said. “I’m going to fetch lunch.”

 

She was on her way back, bread and cheese and some cold roast tucked in a basket from the kitchen, when Michel de Chevin stopped her. Having been forewarned by Fel, she was not entirely surprised when he presented her with a bunch of wild-flowers.

 

“Er, thank you,” she said.

 

He bowed. “They reminded me of you,” he said. “Beauty thriving even in the harshest climates.”

 

Killeen had to work hard not to guffaw. “You’re too kind,” she said.

 

“Perhaps this evening you will do me the honour of joining me for dinner in my quarters?” de Chevin asked. “I have managed to secure some more _civilised_ supplies, and my man is not unskilled at cooking. And he will be present, of course, so you will not be unchaperoned.”

 

“Uh, that’s very nice of you,” Killeen said, mind boggling a little at the idea of her needing a _chaperon_ , “but Ser Michel, I must tell you, I _really_ can’t help you with a posting. So it would be a waste of your, um, civilised supplies.”

 

He smiled. “I must disagree. The company of a lovely and charming woman is always an occasion to celebrate.”

 

Somehow, Killeen was not quite sure afterwards how, she found herself agreeing to his invitation.

 

And then, because she couldn’t simply discard the flowers as he stood watching her walk away, she found herself standing in Cullen’s office with the absurd little bouquet.

 

He eyed it, eyebrows up. “I know this place is sometimes a mess, Kill,” he said, “but I never thought you were one for adding feminine touches.”

 

“I’m not,” she said shortly, feeling somehow vaguely insulted, despite the undeniable truth of Cullen’s words — her own housekeeping could be described by words like _neat_ and _tidy_ and _weapons_. “De Chevin gave them to me, it didn’t seem polite to refuse.” She set the basket of food on his desk. “You need to eat something, hungry or not.”

 

“Bribing an officer of the Inquisition for a plum posting, is he?” Cullen said, eyeing the food without interest and going back to the letter he had been writing.

 

“Actually, he knows I can’t do anything about finding him a posting,” Killeen said. “He still invited me to dinner.” Somewhat defiantly, she found and empty mug and put the flowers in it.

 

“Meeting someone in the mess-hall is hardly an _invitation to dinner_ ,” Cullen said.

 

“In his quarters,” Killeen said. “With fancy Orlesian food.” _So there._

 

Cullen’s pen paused on the paper, and he swore with unaccustomed vehemence at the resulting blot. “Well,” he said acerbically, finding a scrap of paper to absorb the ink, “if you have time this afternoon, in between arranging romantic rendezvous, the quartermaster thinks there’s mould in the last shipment of rye. If he’s right, can you put the fear of the Maker, or at least the fear of yourself, into the merchant responsible?”

 

The quartermaster _was_ right. The merchant denied responsibility, and blamed Skyhold’s intemperate climate. The quartermaster insisted that no mere matter of weather could defeat his warehouses. The merchant made an indelicate suggestion about the quartermaster’s warehouses.

 

Killeen was tempted to knock their heads together. _Or lock them **both** in the warehouse to thrash it out._

 

By the time she’d sorted them out the day was fading. She checked Cullen’s office and found it empty, then considered Dorian’s remarks on Ferelden hygiene and braved the wash-house again. After ten minutes hunting through her quarters for a shirt that didn’t have visible patches and another five in uncharacteristic dithering over what to do with her hair, she was late, but not yet fashionably so, when she presented herself at Michel de Chevin’s quarters and was bowed in by a liveried servant.

 

De Chevin had certainly managed to _secure_ rather more luxurious appointments than graced her own quarters, or Cullen’s loft: goblets of actual glass glittered in the light of the candles on the table, the wooden plates had a lustrous gleam that promised there would be no splinters in the food, and a thick rug and heavy wall-hangings trapped the heat of the fire and made the temperature comfortably warm.

 

“Please, forgive the primitive furnishings,” de Chevin said, gracefully taking her hand and kissing it. “Alas, my circumstances have been somewhat straightened of late, or I would provide you with better hospitality.”

 

“It’s very nice,” Killeen said honestly.

 

“Ah, but then, you are a soldier like myself,” de Chevin said, offering her a glass of wine. Killeen resisted the urge to sniff it suspiciously — in the candlelight, its rich colour was almost that of blood — and instead sipped. _Different_. “We are used to conditions of the greatest hardship, and even the small comforts make us happy, _non_?”

 

“Non,” Killeen agreed. “I mean, yes.” She had not previously considered herself to have anything in common with the chevaliers of the Orlesian Empire, but de Chevin had a point: they _were_ soldiers, even if often foolishly dressed ones. She wondered suddenly what Michel de Chevin would be like as a sparring partner.

 

There were a multitude of small, delicious morsels to go with the wine, which Killeen found herself getting used to — as opposed to the wine she was accustomed to, which one didn’t so much grow _used_ to as _numb_ to. She stopped waiting for de Chevin to once again broach the subject of his posting and instead began to enjoy his company. He had entertaining stories of places he’d served, and was gratifyingly impressed when she shared a few of her own. She demonstrated the troop movements at Adamant Fortress with the empty wine bottle, the salt cellar and the cutlery. De Chevin asked surprisingly intelligent questions, and had his own accounts of sieges. He flirted, mildly, and Killeen found that after several glasses of wine, his courtly compliments seemed less absurd and rather more fun.

 

When the meal was finished, Killeen was genuinely sorry. Far from the ordeal of stilted conversation and awkward silences she had expected, it had been an entirely pleasant evening, and as she made her way back to Cullen’s office, wrapped in the cloak de Chevin had insisted she borrow, she was surprised to hear the last watch bell.

 

She was more surprised to find a candle still burning in the office, Cullen at his desk staring at a report.

 

“You’re up late,” she said, closing the door behind her.

 

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sleep eludes me.”

 

“Try the Chant of Light, always makes me nod _straight_ off,” Killeen said.

 

“I did,” Cullen said in a low voice, and Killeen was immediately sorry for the jest. She knew just what sort of nights saw Cullen on his knees, repeating the words of the Chant in a voice cracked with strain.

 

“Bad?” she asked gently.

 

He sighed. “Usual.” He glanced up, and frowned slightly. “New cloak?”

 

Killeen slung it from her shoulders and dropped into a chair. “Borrowed. _Some_ people are gentlemen when a woman’s feeling the cold.”

 

Even the old joke didn’t seem to lighten his mood. “Be careful of him. He’s on bad terms with the Empress Celine and wants the Inquisitor to use her influence on his behalf.”

 

“He didn’t ask me for any help with that, or with anything,” Killeen said.

 

“Waiting to take you off guard, probably,” Cullen said.

 

Killeen bit back a reply that, prompted by the wine she’d drunk, would have said a great deal more than she wanted to. _Just because **you** don’t want me, doesn’t mean no man alive would talk to **me** except to get to **you**_. “I’m going to bed,” she said instead. “You should, as well.”

 

“We know what Samson’s up to,” Cullen said, and Killeen, about to stand, sank back into her seat. “What makes him so strong, so powerful. Armour, made of red lyrium.”

 

Killeen frowned. “Wouldn’t that be in the realm of an incredibly bad idea?” she asked. “Just a _sword_ made of red lyrium turned the Knight Commander into a statue.”

 

“He has a Tranquil working for him, a very talented one. Maddox — another of Meredith’s victims.” Cullen shook his head. “They knew each other in the Circle. Maddox has obviously found a way to keep the armour from killing Samson. If we can find a way to destroy that armour …”

 

“How?”

 

“We know where Maddox is. If we can capture him, persuade him to give us the information —” Cullen rubbed the back of his neck, then drew his hand wearily over his face. “We leave at dawn.”

 

“I’ll pack,” Killeen said.

 

Cullen shook his head. “No — I need you here. Skyhold can’t spare both of us.”

 

He was right, cold second thoughts told her. _Still …_ Killeen found herself uneasy. “I hope the Inquisitor knows you’re slow on your left-ward parry.” _And that you haven’t been sleeping much, or eating properly._

 

“I _have_ been a Templar since I was eighteen,” Cullen said, then softened his tone with a smile. “I’ll be fine, Kill. It’s just — I need to do this. Finish this, myself.”

 

“I know,” Killeen said. She couldn’t say _be careful_ — fighting cautious was a good way to get killed. She settled for: “Come back with any dents in your armour and Harritt will hit you with that heirloom hammer of his.”

 

“You’d protect me,” Cullen said dryly.

 

“Probably,” Killeen said. “It _is_ my job.”

 

_When you let me._

 

_Maker, if she lets him be hurt … or worse …_

 

_She’ll answer to **me** , and Corypheus can damn well make do with whatever bits are still left._

 

 

 

 

 

 


	25. In His Absence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen discovers disadvantages to no longer going unnoticed.

Killeen stood before the heavy double doors of the War Room and took a quick inventory of herself. _Boots, polished; hair, combed; shirt, clean and with no patches that showed; armour, in good order._ Remembering that the Spymaster was Orlesian, she had bathed in the wash-house that morning.

 

_Delay isn’t going to make this any easier._

 

Killeen took a deep breath, raised a hand to push open the doors, and walked in as if she belonged there.

 

It was a slight anti-climax to discover the room was empty. _Well, I **am** a half-glass early_. She moved to the table. Previously, she had only glimpsed it when an urgent errand had brought her to retrieve Cullen from a conference; now she had the opportunity to study it in detail. Markers littered the huge map, showing the location of troops, allies, and enemies. She spotted the red-painted one that must indicate Samson, set on a location marked _Shrine of Dumat_ ; another that could only be Corypheus, near _Arbor Wilds_.

 

“You are punctual,” a voice said behind her, and Killeen spun to find Lady Cassandra watching her, unsmiling. “That is a quality I appreciate.”

 

“I have last night’s reports,” Killeen said, raising the parchments in demonstration.

 

A hooded figure slipped through the door behind Cassandra, and the Spymaster’s incongruously sweet voice said: “Excellent. Let’s see what we have.”

 

They were both terrifying women, in their different ways, but Killeen was relieved to find they did not seem to regard her as an interloper. _A sub-standard substitute, perhaps,_ she thought as she scrambled to keep up with their rapid-fire questions and suggestions, exchanged in a short-hand that spoke of long familiarity, _but not an interloper._ And Lady Montilyet was charming, and polite, never directly disagreeing with anyone — and always got her own way.

 

After an hour, Killeen was beginning to think that Josephine Montilyet was the most dangerous of the three.

 

She was drenched with sweat by the time the meeting was over.

 

_And, Maker, I have to do that every day!_

 

“Lieutenant,” the Spymaster said as they both walked back toward the Great Hall, “I wish to thank you. I know this cannot be easy for you, but Lady Cassandra cannot simply step into Commander Cullen’s shoes.”

 

“She’s very capable,” Killeen said.

 

“She would hardly have been the Right Hand of the Divine if she were _not_ ,” the Spymaster said.

 

“No, ser,” Killeen said.

 

“But she travels often with the Inquisitor. She does not have the familiarity with the details of our military operations that Cullen has. That you do.”

 

“Happy to serve, ser,” Killeen said stolidly as they passed through Lady Montilyet’s office and through the doors to the Great Hall.

 

“We are _all_ happy to serve,” the Spymaster said. “But our service brings different degrees of difficulty, and reward.”

 

“Ser,” Killeen said, having learnt long ago that minimal agreement being best when one had no idea what a senior officer was getting at.

 

“You must be concerned for Commander Cullen’s safety,” the Spymaster said. She paused, and said too softly to be overheard. “Do you still sleep in his quarters when he is not here?”

 

Killeen felt her face flame at the implication. “It’s not —” _like **that**_. “I don’t — we aren’t —”

 

“I am not … unaware of the Commander’s difficulties,” Leliana said, little more than a murmur. “Or the support you have given him.”

 

Killeen met her icy grey eyes, so very pretty, so very cold. It took more courage than she would have expected to say: “You’d have to ask Commander Cullen about that. Ser.”

 

Leliana smiled. “Very good,” she said. “I meant only to thank you. Commander Cullen is critical to the Inquisition’s success.”

 

“Ser,” Killeen said.

 

The Spymaster turned, turned back. “I believe that Michel de Chevin is paying court to you?”

 

“I’m not sure that’s quite true,” Killeen said.

 

“He is quite sure that it is true,” Leliana said. “I wish you well, Lieutenant, in making the … right choices.”

 

She turned and left, leaving Killeen to make her way back to Cullen’s office, mind whirling. Paying court to me?

 

_The **right** choices? Is she trying to tell me Cullen is right about de Chevin?_

 

And — _if I make the **wrong** choices, is the Spymaster going to have me killed?_

 

_Probably not._

 

_Maybe not._

 

_Possibly not._

 

Life was much easier, Killeen reflected as she made her way back to Cullen’s office, when the high muckety-mucks didn’t know you existed.

 

Over the next days, she settled into a new routine. She slept in her own quarters, but still met Fel for breakfast and a discussion of the day’s work in Cullen’s office. Although more of the decisions were hers alone, she had no responsibility for grand strategic planning, and by leaning more heavily on the squad leaders (sending Fel to check on their progress unexpectedly did wonders for reliability) Killeen found the work manageable.

 

And so she managed it.

 

Still, the sense she was missing something plagued her — some detail, some crucial point. Some nights, she woke in a cold sweat, knowing _something’s wrong_ , but unable to bring to mind what it was, despite the most exhaustive mental review.

 

It was a strong enough feeling for her to mention it, casually, at one morning’s conference in the War Room. _Very common on taking on increased responsibility_ , Lady Montilyet assured her. _I felt very much the same when I became Head of my house._

 

Killeen did her best to put it out of her mind. It was easier to ignore when she was busy, with work, or with —

 

Michel de Chevin extended further invitations: to dinner; for a ride; for a walk along the walls. Killeen hesitated over the first an unconscionable time, Cullen’s warning in her ears, but then accepted it.

 

The dinners were an enjoyable distraction, the rides a welcome escape from Cullen’s desk. De Chevin’s mount was no Steelheart, nor a match for Firefly’s speed, but still, a good horse bearing a skilled rider. De Chevin had training and experience in fighting while mounted and taught Killeen some of the beginner’s tricks of it – how to brace against the shock of impact, how to move in the saddle to dodge and block without losing either your own balance or your mount’s. Firefly was sensitive and responsive and Killeen was pleased that de Chevin praised the mare extensively, although he agreed that Firefly was too mature to likely ever be inured to battle.

 

Once, he joined Killeen with the Skyhold urchins in the yard playing kick-about keep-away. He had less understanding of the rules than the children, but he learnt quickly, playing with enjoyment and enthusiasm. Later, as they both poured water from the horse trough over their heads, he explained that noble children had no chance for such games. In a small and restricted social circle, there were few opportunities, and of course it would not be done to play with the children of servants.

 

“It sounds lonely,” Killeen said, thinking of her own childhood, long afternoons spent in rambling gangs of children, games starting spontaneously, arguments breaking out to be adjudicated by the general consensus, and a united front against any adult interference.

 

“Yes,” de Chevin said. “Not what I would want for my own children, I think. Although my circumstances make such an elevated upbringing unlikely for my heirs.”

 

It was the first time he had mentioned his situation, and Killeen waited for him to press her on the assistance Cullen had said he wanted.

 

But de Chevin didn’t. He tossed his dripping hair back from his face, kissed her hand, and took his leave.

 

“She could build an empire if she chose,” Cole said, right by Killeen’s elbow.

 

Killeen was startled enough to lose her balance and sit down, abruptly, in the water trough.

 

“Cole!” she snapped, hauling herself out.

 

“It sings,” Cole said, looking straight at her with his intense, pale eyes. “It _sings_.”

 

“What —?”

 

But he was gone.

 

“Kill!” Fel called shrilly from the steps, and waved her arms frantically.

 

Killeen crossed to the steps at a jog, took them two at a time. “What is it?”

 

“Ser Dorian Pavus wants you.”

 

Killeen nodded. “Thank you. Have you washed your hands and face?”

 

“Yes,” Fel said shiftily.

 

Killeen sighed, starting up the stairs to the upper courtyard and thence the library. “Did you really wash them or just sort of?”

 

“I _meant_ to wash them,” Fel said. “But then you were talking to Ser de Chien so I couldn’t.”

 

“Ser de _Chevin_ ,” Killeen corrected. “And _why_ couldn’t you?”

 

“To make sure he didn’t _do_ anything,” Fel said as if it was obvious.

 

Killeen decided to table _that_ discussion for later consideration. “Go now, then, before dinner.”

 

“Are you going to talk to Ser de Chien again?” Fel asked suspiciously.

 

“I’m going to talk to Pavus,” Killeen said. “ _You’re_ going to wash your hands.”

 

Dorian was waiting for her in the library — somewhat to her surprise, Varric was there as well.

 

He gave her a nod. “Killer.”

 

“My lovely lady Lieutenant,” Dorian said. “We’ve been discussing lyrium. Specifically, red lyrium.”

 

“Sparkler said you though there’d be a cure,” Varric said.

 

“Well, if it’s a poison —” Killeen said, but Varric shook his head.

 

“It’s a poison the same way the sun is a lamp,” he said. “I’ve put out some feelers, asked some people to look into it who are smarter about this stuff than me, but don’t get your hopes up. I’ve heard nothing so far.”

 

Killeen nodded. “Well, thanks,” she said. “I appreciate you looking into it. It’s just — you get the feeling from the reports from Emprise Du Lion that not everyone exactly _volunteered_.” She paused. “Thank you for telling me. I should get back.”

 

She turned to leave, and stopped as Dorian said casually: “So. How’s the gorgeous chevalier?”

 

Killeen counted to three before turning. “Who do you mean?” she asked, equally casually.

 

“Don’t be coy, lovely Lieutenant, it doesn’t suit you at all. Ser Michel, he of the golden hair and deliciously broad shoulders.”

 

“He’s very well, I believe,” Killeen said.

 

“Yes, but _how is he_?” Dorian asked with a raised eyebrow. “One does hear such delightful stories about Orlesians, but unfortunately I never had the chance to test them _thoroughly_.”

 

Killeen looked at him, then at Varric, who shrugged. “Just looking for material for my next book, Killer.”

 

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Killeen said. “Ser Michel and I —”

 

“Oh, still dancing?” Dorian said. “Such a delightful stage, unless overly prolonged. Then it simply becomes _tedious_.”

 

“I understand that’s not a problem you and the Iron Bull are likely to have,” Killeen shot back.

 

Dorian flung back his head with a shout of laughter. “No. Did poor Cullen ever recover his sight?”

 

“I cannot move my legs,” Killeen said.

 

“I can’t believe I missed it,” Varric grumbled. “The Seeker’s face alone … _no one_ does a good impersonation of her.”

 

“Cullen’s was pretty good, too,” Killeen said. She flinched back, raising a hand defensively, eyes averted. “I’m … so. _Sorry_.”

 

“It was almost worth the interruption,” Dorian mused. “Tell me, dear lovely lady lieutenant, what does Commander Cullen think of this Orlesian liaison of yours?”

 

“You’d have to ask Commander Cullen,” Killeen said evenly, ignored Dorian’s raised eyebrow, and took her leave.

 

Still, the question lingered, even as she combed her hair and changed her shirt before meeting de Chevin for a stroll along the walls, and with it, a vague sense of unease that she attributed to Cullen’s obvious distrust of the chevalier.

 

Was Cullen right? _Is he a better judge of character than I, with my head turned by flowers and compliments?_

 

The first sight of de Chevin waiting for her dispelled her doubts. Surely his smile could not but be genuine, the interest he showed in her stories anything but sincere.

 

He offered her his arm with a slight bow, and she noted he always manoeuvred them so he, and not she, was on the windy side.

 

_Still, no doubt they teach such things in Orlais._

 

Impulsively, Killeen stopped walking, and de Chevin perforce stopped as well. “Ser Michel — I know you have certain … that is, I can’t help with — if that’s why you —”

 

She had hoped for denial, braced herself against an admission.

 

She was in no way prepared when he tipped her chin up with two gentle fingers and kissed her on the lips.

 

It was a brief kiss, little more than a touch, and then he drew away, and bowed. “Forgive me if I have presumed. I could not resist.”

 

“I — no, you —” Killeen stammered.

 

“If my attentions are unwelcome, then do not come to dinner tomorrow,” de Chevin said. “But if I have not offended you, I would be delighted if you would join me.”

 

And, with that, he bowed, and left her, leaving Killeen still trying to frame a response.

 

She walked slowly back along the walls. The kiss had been … _pleasant_ , yes. Not more than that. As her previous kisses and encounters had been _pleasant_.

 

_Perhaps that is what it is like._

 

_Perhaps if I had been blond and slight and a mage and Cullen had … perhaps I would have found that **pleasant** , too._

 

But the thrill of heat that ran through her at the thought of _Cullen’s_ fingers beneath her jaw, _Cullen’s_ lips on hers suggested that _pleasant_ was an entirely inadequate word for what that experience would be.

 

 


	26. Beneath His Armour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cullen and Killeen confront consequences.

 

Killeen was exercising Firefly when she saw the knot of riders on the road across the ravine. _Inquisition banners_ , she noted first and foremost, bone-deep _friend or foe_ reaction, and then, narrowing her eyes, made out the huge antlers of the hart the Inquisitor liked to ride on longer journeys.

She stood in the stirrups, straining to see the big white form of Steelheart, found the stallion and saw his rider upright. _Not hurt, at least, not badly._

Her breath came out in a half-sob of relief. The sense of unease, the irrational conviction that something was wrong, was _really badly_ wrong, had grown stronger with every day of their absence.

_But it was just my imagination._

Still, the feeling lingered.

Killeen turned Firefly toward home, letting the mare have her head. Even with Firefly’s speed, the other riders had passed under the gate long before she herself reached the bridge, and when she reached the stables it was to see Master Dennet’s boys walking the horses cool, Steelheart among them.

Dismounting, she asked the nearest as casually as she could: “So, they’re back?”

He nodded.

“Everyone in one piece?”

“As far as I could see,” he said, and shrugged.

Killeen made herself take care of Firefly, then check Steelheart’s legs and hooves, and then, detouring to pick up a couple of sweet rolls from the kitchen on the way, walk, rather than run, back to Cullen’s office.

Which was completely empty of Cullen.

_Of course_ , she thought. _They’ll have debriefings, there will be the matters that Lady Montilyet and the Spymaster want to bring to the Inquisitor and the Commander’s attention. It was ridiculous to expect him to be here._

Then she heard a footfall in the loft.

_Could be Cullen._

_Could be **not** Cullen, too._

She didn’t call out, but slipped the rolls in her pocket to free her hands and cat-footed her way to the ladder, climbing slowly and silently, until she could raise herself just enough to peer over the edge of the floor.

It _was_ Cullen: Cullen in his shirt-sleeves, cuirass and cloak slung carelessly on the floor in a way that was completely unlike him, the fabric of his shirt and the ends of his hair damp with sweat despite the chill in the air, Cullen holding a faintly glowing blue bottle in his hand and staring at it as if it were simultaneously the entrance to the Void and the key to escaping it.

He wet his lips and Killeen saw his throat move as he swallowed convulsively. “Just a little …” he whispered hoarsely. “Just this once.”

Killeen hauled herself up into the loft and he spun, startled, the bottle disappearing behind his back. “Kill. I didn’t hear you.”

“Give me the lyrium, Cullen,” Killeen said flatly, and held out her hand.

He looked away from her and didn’t move it. “It’s … you don’t understand.”

“I understand that you’ve made it this long without any,” Killeen said. “And it hasn’t been easy. Do you want all that to be for nothing?”

“I wouldn’t — not like before,” Cullen said. “Just — for now.”

“Just one drink.” Killeen took a step towards him, then another. “Just one hand of cards.”

“This is _different_ ,” he snapped. “I _need_ this. I can’t — I can’t go on like this. Not like _this_.”

Killeen reached him, touched his arm gently, as she would a spooked horse. “Talk to Lady Cassandra,” she suggested.

“She doesn’t understand, either.”

“Then —”

Cullen turned sharply. “It won’t help! _Nothing_ will help! Can’t you get that into your head?”

His movement had brought the hand holding the bottle within Killeen’s reach, and she grabbed it.

Cullen seized her wrist, gripping it until his knuckles whitened and pain shot up her arm. “Leave me alone! Do you understand? Leave me _alone_!”

Her fingers opened involuntarily as he found the pressure points and compressed them mercilessly. Killeen saw him take the bottle in his other hand through streaks of light across her vision as his grip on her wrist tightened further. Bones moved in ways they were not supposed to. “Cullen —”

“ _Enough_ ,” he growled at her.

“Cullen.” Killeen tried to keep her voice even. “Cullen. You’re hurting me.”

For several seconds he seemed not to understand, and then he looked down at his hand as if it belonged to a stranger. “ _Maker_ ,” he said harshly, and let her go.

His fingers had left her flesh bloodless and he stared at the white imprint of his grip, his face blanched to almost the same colour. A long moment passed.

Then he spun on his heel, drew his arm back, and hurled the lyrium bottle through the hole in the roof.

Very far away, Killeen heard it break on the rock below the keep.

“I —” Cullen said. “I —” He sank down on the bed, head in his hands. “ _Kill_.”

“Nothing broken,” she said.

“Not for lack of _trying_ ,” Cullen said on a single hard breath, and then: “Salve. In the chest. Let me —” He flung himself to his knees at the foot of the bed, hands shaking so badly it took him two tries at the latch. “Sit down. I’ll find it. I know it’s here.” He dug furiously through the contents, finally producing the pot he sought and bringing back to her, fumbling to open the lid. “Let me —”

“I can do it,” Killeen said.

“Let me,” Cullen pleaded. Killeen held out her wrist and he took it so gently she could barely feel his touch, scooping out the salve with his other hand and spreading it tenderly over her skin, and then again, and again, as if he could erase the marks he’d left. Finally the pot was empty, and he released her arm and turned away.

“Cullen,” Killeen said. “Talk to me.” When he bowed his head, silent, she added: “Or I’ll fetch Cole. Your choice — but I _will_ know what’s going on.”

“It was —” he started, stopped, shook his head. “I can’t.”

She moved a little closer to him, took his hand in both of hers. “You can,” she said. “It’s a nightmare until it’s a memory. Someone told me that, once.”

“Someone who didn’t know what he was talking about.” Cullen’s voice was so low Killeen had to strain to hear it.

“I disagree. And I’m the only one with a vote, right now. So _tell_ me.”

And in a low, faltering voice, he did, broken phrases and long pauses. The Shrine of Dumat, the horror of fighting and killing men he recognised, men he’d known and liked; the Tranquil, Maddox, taking his own life through agonising poison to protect Samson’s secrets; the search for _anything_ , _any_ clue, that might help them against Samson.

And everywhere, red lyrium, in the bodies of the dead, in the walls, growing from the floor and spreading like a fungus throughout the Shrine, distilled and prepared into bottles stacked ready for the Red Templars to take.

“Mages can hear it,” Cullen said. “And — I didn’t know until I was there, but Templars can too. At least, this ex-Templar can. Maybe because there’s no other lyrium to drown it out. And it _sings_ , Kill. It sings like lyrium, but not quite the same. It sounds — darker. And stronger, Maker, so much stronger. It was — it was everywhere, all around me, and I wanted, Andraste forgive me, I _wanted_. You can’t imagine what it’s like, Kill, there aren’t words for that feeling, that _craving_. I think if I’d been alone I might have, even red lyrium, even _knowing_. And — ever since, I can’t — can’t eat, can’t _sleep_ , it’s like my skin doesn’t fit, and at the same time like I’ve been hollowed out, the sky is too low, like I’m deaf and blind and all I have to do to see and hear is —” He was sweating again. “I don’t think I can, Kill. Not again. Last time — there wasn’t so much at stake. But _now_ — and it’s all I can think about, all I can imagine, all I can hear, that song, the memory of that song, the memory of how good it feels when the song is in your blood.”

He fell silent, fingers laced through hers.

“Does the Inquisitor know?” Killeen asked, and when he shook his head. “Maybe I should go and fetch her.”

He closed his eyes and nodded, expression bleak as endless winter. “She should remove me from my position, replace me.”

“ _Maker_ , that’s not what I meant,” Killeen said. “I thought — you would want her — to talk to her.”

“I don’t want her to … see me like this,” Cullen said. “You’re right, she should know. But … when I can — not yet. Not _now_.”

“All right,” Killeen said. “Cullen, when did you last eat?”

He looked blank. “Yesterday. I think. Probably.”

She freed one hand from his, dug in her pocket and produced the roll, somewhat squashed. “Here.” Cullen looked at it doubtfully, and Killeen pushed it closer to his face. “Eat it. At least some of it. You’re burning logs you haven’t cut yet — didn’t it occur to you that would only make you feel worse?”

Cullen took the roll, obediently tore off a bit, and ate it. “Nothing much has occurred to me for the past four days but lyrium.”

_Lyrium, and punishing yourself for **wanting** lyrium_ , Killeen thought. She went to his chest, rummaged until she found a clean shirt, and tossed it to him. “Eat your roll, put on a dry shirt, and lie down,” she said implacably.

Cullen followed her directions without argument, without even a word, shoulders slumped, eyes shadowed.

“Now sleep,” Killeen said, but he didn’t close his eyes. “Cullen, I’ll be here, I promise.”

“The dreams are —” he said. “Worse than — _before_.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and took his hand. “I’ll be right here.”

His mouth tightened, and he covered his face with his free hand. “ _Kill_ ,” he said, low and wretched, holding to her hand with the strength of desperation.

“Still here.” She put her other hand on his shoulder. “I’m here, Cullen, you’re all right. I’m here.”

And then, whether she simply lost her balance or Cullen drew her down, Killeen wasn’t sure, but she was on the bed beside him, and he was clinging to her with the strength of a drowning man holding to the rope that could save him, face pressed against her neck, body shaking with silent convulsive sobs.

And there was nothing she could do except hold him with all the strength of her arms.

“I should — should have taken you _with_ me,” he said raggedly. “And Void take the Inquisition. All the way through the Shrine I pretended to myself I had, that I could hear what you’d be saying.” His vowels flattened to an approximation of her less-well bred accent. “ _Cullen, don’t be a bigger fool than you were born._ It was all that got me out of there with my soul at least partly intact.”

Killeen stroked his hair and whispered over and over that it would be all right, that she was there, that he was all right, for what could have been ten minutes or three hours, until his shaking eased and his breathing steadied.

“I’m so tired,” he murmured wearily. “Kill, I’ve been so tired.”

“Then sleep,” she said, and as if she were a mage and her words had the force of magic to command obedience, his body went slack against her, head heavy on her shoulder, and he was gone, falling into the dark well of sleep with utter confidence she would not let the creatures who lived there harm him.

Killeen pulled the blankets over both of them and settled down to keep watch.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has an incident of what could be described as domestic partner violence. Nothing in this chapter is meant to suggest that such behaviour is “okay” if someone is upset enough, that it doesn’t count if it’s “just” bruises, or that being sorry makes everything all right.


	27. In His Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone doesn't get what they want and someone else doesn't get what they need. (NSFW)

Killeen woke, completely and instantly, when she heard Cullen moan softly in his sleep.

 

He had been back a week, was … _better than he had been_ , was true, but it was a cautious, qualified truth. Killeen made sure he ate, made sure he slept, kept hold of as many of the tasks she had taken on in his absence as she could. The Inquisition was receiving more and more ex-Templar recruits, and knowing he was an example to them of the possibility of shedding lyrium’s chains seemed to help Cullen.

 

Mostly, he was successful in hiding the moments when his hands shook, when sweat stood on his brow despite the cool mountain air.

 

 _Except from Fel._ Killeen had seen the little girl watching her Ser Bear, frowning in thought, had taken a quiet moment to explain to her that Cullen had been sick, but he was getting better, and it would embarrass him to talk about it or be talked about.

 

Fel had nodded, once, decisively, had never mentioned it again, but had shown extra attentiveness to Cullen at their breakfasts, filling his teacup as soon as it was empty, slipping one of her own rolls onto his plate when his back was turned. _Both of you feeding me up,_ Cullen had joked when he caught her at it, _I’ll need Harritt to let my armour out soon._

 

And frozen, when Fel got up from her chair and flung her arms around him, before returning her embrace as gently and carefully as if the little girl was made of glass.

 

“Don’t let her do that again,” he said to Killeen later. “If I —”

 

 _Oh, Cullen._ “You wouldn’t.”

 

He touched the blue-black bruise on her wrist with one finger, silent, drew his hand back.

 

Killeen captured it in her own. “Cullen. You weren’t yourself.”

 

So low she barely heard it: “How do you know?”

 

She had searched his room, his office, whenever she had the chance — daily, twice, three times a day — stomach knotting with the fear that every opened drawer, every moved blanket, would reveal a bottle of blue liquid.

 

_Or, worse — an **empty** bottle._

 

When Cullen had caught her at it, she’d expected anger, stammered an apology.

 

He’d only shaken his head, said wearily: “You won’t find anything.”

 

“I — I _have_ to look, Cullen, you —”

 

“I know. I know you do. But there’s nothing.” A long pause. “Because if I — if there _was_ , you’d take it away, or try to. And I might —” A long look at her wrist. “And that would be unforgivable. _Is_ unforgivable.”

 

There had to be the right words to take that look off his face, there _had_ to be. “It’s a bruise, Cullen, I’ve had as bad sparring, Void, _I’ve_ given _you_ as bad, sparring. Remember the time Krem taught me a new sweep and I dumped you arse over teapot straight into the rail? You had a bruise on your leg that had you limping for a week.”

 

That had won her a small smile at the memory. “It wasn’t my _leg_ that was bruised.”

 

A small smile, but the first she’d gotten from him since his return, and Killeen had breathed a long sigh of relief. _It will be all right_ , the same words she’d told Cullen over and over, for the first time believing it herself. _It will be all right. Eventually, it will be all right._

 

One night he had shown Killeen the scrap of parchment he had found in Samson’s camp, a letter addressed directly to him. _Drink enough lyrium and its song reveals the truth,_ Killeen had read silently. _The Chantry used us, you’re fighting the wrong battle. Corypheus chose me as his General and his Vessel for power._

 

“You know he’s barking,” she said flatly, offering it back to him.

 

“Yes,” Cullen said, and put the parchment in the fire.

 

But his dreams had been worse, that night, had left him shaking and chilled and barely able to talk. When Killeen had stoked the fire and turned to spread her own blankets across him, Cullen had reached for her blindly, held her as desperately as he had on the first night of his return. Whispered, as if afraid to let anyone, even himself, hear his words, of his fear at times that Samson was _not_ wrong, not about the Chantry.

 

“I was _eighteen_. I’d been with the Templars since _thirteen_.” Voice tight, the muscles on the arms around her like wood beneath the skin. “How could I — could _any_ of us — know? That we were choosing — choosing losing everything, eventually, memory of family, of friends, of who we love? Or else — or else _this_.”

 

Again, Killeen had held him until he calmed, until he slept, and longer, listening to his breathing until she slipped into dreams herself.

 

And had woken in the morning with his head still nestled against her shoulder, his arm flung across her chest, the scar on his shoulder-blade beneath her palm. With only the slightest movement, she could have traced that scar as she had longed to, could have slipped her fingers beneath the neck of his shirt and felt the smooth skin, the thin line of raised tissue, beneath.

 

The thought had made her breath quicken.

 

But if she woke him, and he realised …

 

 _I can put it behind me, if you can,_ he had said at Adamant, and she had been scrupulously careful to pretend that she _could_. And now, as he battled demons old and new, was no time for her to let him know she had lied: that there had never been a day she had not longed to hold him in her arms, not as she did now as a sister, a mother, a _friend_ , might, but to touch and be touched, to learn the long muscles of his back with her fingers as well as she knew them with her eyes, to press a kiss to the place on the back of his neck which his fingers found when he was lost in thought …

 

Cullen had stirred, and woke. “Oh — I. Um.”

 

Killeen lifted his arm off her and rolled out of bed in one movement. “I’ll fetch breakfast,” she said with her back to him, hunting for her boots.

 

In her imagination, he had stretched out his hand, fingers hovering just short of the curve of her back as she bent to do up the laces.

 

In reality, he had said: “Thank you,” and was pulling on his own boots, face hidden, when she paused at the top of the ladder to glance back.

 

A third bad night, a fourth, and somehow, it became an unspoken agreement: their new pattern, that she shared not only his room but his bed, chaste as two stranded travellers huddled together against a blizzard’s chill, her living presence some sort of talisman against the shades and demons that stalked his dreams.

 

But this morning, he was dreaming again.

 

Killeen opened her mouth to speak, to wake him, and then she realised that wrapped in his arms, her back firmly against his chest, she had little leverage if he woke, as he still sometimes did — _as he might be more likely to do **now**_ — fighting the demons in his dreams. She would be horribly vulnerable.

 

She began to slip, quietly and carefully, from his embrace, but his arms tightened around her. His face pressed to the back of her neck, he moaned again, and as his body moulded itself against hers and his hands drifted gently from her waist to other, less neutral points, Killeen realised he was not having a nightmare.

 

 _Dream_ , yes. _Nightmare_ , no.

 

_Dreaming, no doubt, of the Inquisitor._

 

She had to wake him, or move away from him, or both, as Cullen’s memory or imagination of the Inquisitor did something to him that, by the evidence, he very much appreciated. Killeen _knew_ she had to — but his lips against her neck, his hands roaming slowly over her, the warmth of his body pressing and rocking against her — it was impossible, it was forbidden, but it felt so good, _Maker_ , it felt good, trails of heat spreading through her body from every point their flesh touched, gathering and pooling in her belly, building and building.

 

_I could just lie here and …_

 

 _No._ That would be taking advantage of his trust, his vulnerability, in ways that were beyond unforgivable. 

 

She wriggled from his grasp and bolted down the ladder without looking back, and fled out the door.

_I got up early, he was sound asleep, I went to get breakfast. Whatever happened in that bed after that, I wasn’t there, I have no idea._

 

She stood in the courtyard for several minutes, persuading herself that it was true, that it had happened like that, _just exactly like that._

 

Then she begged her usual sweetrolls and tea from the kitchen and made her way back to the office.

 

Fel was waiting, as she always did, just by the door.

 

Killeen nodded to her, took a deep breath, and went in.

 

She was relieved to see that Cullen was already up and at his desk. _It’s a normal morning,_ she told herself. _An absolutely normal morning._

 

Cullen looked up as she entered. He smiled, and seemed about to speak, but as Fel followed Killeen inside he looked back at his desk, flushing slightly.

 

“Breakfast,” Killeen said firmly, setting it down. “Fel, pour the tea.” As the little girl did, face creased in concentration, Killeen made herself look at Cullen with nothing more than friendly enquiry, a touch of concern. “I’m glad you slept well.”

 

He coloured more. “I, ah — you’d left, when I woke, I —”

 

“You were dead to the world when I woke up, and I was hungry,” Killeen said.

 

“And you — ah.” He glanced at Fel. “Had a good night, yourself?”

 

“Slept like a log,” Killeen said.

 

“Oh,” Cullen said, looking at her sidelong. _Undoubtedly relieved._

 

“Closed my eyes and opened them to morning, don’t think I even rolled over in between,” Killeen went on, laying it on with a trowel. “Not that I remember, anyway.” She didn’t dare look at him as she said it, for fear he would see the memory of _yes, oh, yes,_ of his body against hers, his hands …

 

A wave of heat washed over her and she dropped her roll, stayed bent double picking it up until a rush of blood to her head would account for the colour in her cheeks.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: To be clear, I do *not* think it’s okay to have sex with someone who is asleep and therefore has not consented.
> 
> I meant to 'bank' this chapter until tomorrow, to give myself more time to finish the one after it, but I couldn't keep you all waiting - so the next chapter may be 36 instead of 24 hours. Please, do talk among yourselves until I come back ...


	28. Beneath His Desk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Varric brings a friend.

 

  
“Killer, Curly,” Varric’s gravely voice said from the door, and Killeen straightened and turned, relieved at the interruption. “Got someone here you should talk to.”

Following Varric into the room was a female dwarf, a slight swagger in her step. She looked around and raised an eyebrow. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”

Varric sighed. “Curly, Killer, this is Bianca Davri. She knows a little about red lyrium, and I know Killer was looking into it.”

“They christen you Killer?” Bianca asked. “Because if so, _that’s_ impressive.”

“Killeen,” Killeen said, aware that Cullen had gone still at the reference to red lyrium.

“Less impressive,” Bianca said. “Is that teapot empty or do you just have no manners?”

“Bianca,” Varric said. “Curly is the Commander of the Inquisition, and Killer is his second-in-command.”

“Then they should know better,” Bianca said. She pulled a chair over to the desk and hoisted herself up on to it as Cullen collected himself and poured another mug of tea. “So, red lyrium. I know where it’s coming from.”

“Where?” Cullen asked immediately. Then he glanced at Fel. “We’re going to be busy for a while. Run down to Master Dennet and tell him we’ll be late this morning.”

Fel hesitated, the conflict between delight at unaccustomed responsibility and dismay at being excluded from an interesting conversation clear on her face. Then responsibility, and Killeen’s repeated lectures on the importance of obeying even unwanted orders, won out, and she nodded, slipped from her seat, and darted from the room.

“Cute kid,” Bianca said, not sounding impressed. “You must be proud.”

“She’s not —” Cullen said immediately, as Killeen said:

“I’m not —”

“Whatever,” Bianca said, bored already. She sipped her tea, pulled a face. “This really is the arse-end of Thedas, isn’t it? Can’t even get decent tea. Anyway, red lyrium. The entrance of the thaig where it was first found has been leaked.”

“How, exactly?” Varric asked. “You didn’t explain that, earlier.”

“How should I know who you told?” Bianca asked. “I mean, I don’t imagine Bartrand carrying his own pack. Anyway, that’s not what’s important.”

“What is important?” Cullen asked, mild exasperation in his tone.

“Red lyrium is lyrium that has the Blight,” Bianca said.

“So two deadly things combine to form something super awful?” Varric said. “Great.”

“No, Varric,” Bianca said. “It means lyrium is _alive_. Minerals don’t get blighted. If lyrium does …”

 _Not a poison, or a toxin_ , Killeen thought.

_A disease. A parasite._

_Living in the veins of Templars like mistletoe in the branches of a tree, killing the host little by little …_

Killeen looked at Cullen, found his face blank with the same horror she felt, and without thinking reached out her hand.

His fingers closed around hers, almost hard enough to hurt. “We need to stop Corypheus’s source,” he said to Varric. “The theory can wait.”

“I’ll talk to the Inquisitor. She’s due back from the Hissing Wastes today,” Varric said. He jerked his head toward the door. “Come on, Bianca. Better we get this over as quickly as possible, before _certain people_ learn you’re here.”

Bianca hopped up from her stool. “Aw, Varric, always so concerned about me … except when you aren’t.”

“ _You_ can take care of yourself,” Varric said as they went out together. “I’m concerned about _me_.”

Killeen realised she was still gripping Cullen’s hand — that he was still holding hers, his thumb brushing slowly across the heel of her palm and back again as he considered the information Varric and Bianca had brought. The steady, gentle movement, so like his touch that morning, ran directly along her nerves without troubling her brain, loosening her joints and starting a slow flush of heat through her body.

She cleared her throat, and Cullen started, let go of her hand as if were white hot, then cursed mildly as the movement made his desk rock slightly and tea slopped from his cup over several pieces of parchment. “I could have sworn the floor in here was even when I left.”

Running footsteps and then Fel appeared at the door, breathless. Her face fell when she saw the dwarfs were gone. “I — _told_ — him,” she panted.

“Thank you,” Cullen said. “Now go and ask Ser Dorian if he has any new requests for the book merchants.”

The girl nodded, whirled, and raced away.

“I’m going to get fat with her running all my errands,” Killeen said. “And Pavus is going to turn her into a nug after five minutes of her questions.”

“It’ll be good for him,” Cullen said, unmoved. “Kill —” He paused, rubbed the back of his neck.

“Well, I’d better spend part of today at least talking to Harritt,” Killeen said briskly, busying herself with the latest armoury report. “From the looks of this that new pack of recruits from Emprise Du Lion are using their training swords to chop wood.”

It distracted him, as she knew it would. “Could be that last load of iron from the Hinterlands,” he said, pulling the stack of requisitions toward him and then frowning as his desk wobbled again. “What did you do to this damn thing while I was away?”

He bent down to examine the desk’s legs.

Killeen made her escape.

Less certain than Cullen of the benefits Dorian might gain from extended exposure to Fel, she headed first for the library, passing Varric introducing Bianca to Cole in the Great Hall.

“Wants him, leaves him,” she overheard Cole saying. “Is it true or just that he wants it to be?”

Killeen grinned to herself, taking the stairs two at a time. Varric’s careful distance from Bianca in the office that morning had been obvious, the scrupulous avoidance of accidental contact of someone who wanted, more than anything, to _touch_ that Killeen recognised from her own circumspect behaviour. _Nice to see Varric on the **receiving** end of the monster he’s created for once,_ she thought, almost tempted to linger to hear Bianca’s response.

Upstairs in the library, Fel had Dorian backed up against a bookcase, looking slightly harried.

“It’s possible, yes,” he was saying to her, “but it’s not a very nice thing to do, and it can have quite unpleasant consequences — that is, results — for the person involved.”

“What can?” Killeen asked. “Fel, are you bothering Ser Pavus?”

“No, I’m just asking him questions.”

“Such as?” Killeen asked suspiciously.

“If he could make someone do something with magic.”

Killeen shot a look at Dorian, and he shrugged. “I assure you, lovely Lady Lieutenant, I didn’t raise the topic.”

“That would be a very bad idea,” Killeen said firmly. “And very, very mean.”

“Oh,” Fel said thoughtfully, and then brightened: “How about turning them into a toad? Could you do that?”

“Messy,” Dorian said. “Bits left over, you see.”

“ _Also_ very, very mean,” Killeen said, steering Fel toward the stairs with an apologetic glance over her shoulder at Dorian.

“What if they deserved it?” Fel asked, skipping ahead of Killeen down the staircase.

“Is someone being mean to you?” Killeen asked. “Someone you’d like to have Dorian make nicer?”

“No,” Fel said, but Killeen thought she sounded evasive. “It’s just a question.”

Killeen made a mental note to pursue it later, a surprise attack having more chance of success. “Well, now you know,” she said. “Come on. Armoury.”

As they passed through the Great Hall again, Killeen saw that Cassandra had joined Varric and Cole.

She steered Fel in a wide berth around them, quite certain that anything private that Cole let slip about Cassandra would bring the Seeker’s wrath down on any witnesses.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, you only get the information about red lyrium being blighted lyrium at the end of the mission with Bianca, not the beginning. I played around with that, thus altering Varric’s personal plot, to make my own plot work better.


	29. Between The Covers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Varric and Cassandra discuss literature.

They were half-way down the stairs when, from behind her, Killeen heard de Chevin call out: “Lieutenant!”

 

Killeen paused. “Fel, run along to the armoury and start reconciling the inventory,” she said.

 

“But —” the little girl started.

 

Killeen pursed her lips. “Are you saying that’s too difficult for you?”

 

“No!” Fel said instantly.

 

“Off you go, then.”

 

She stood watching until Fel had descended the stairs and was on her way across the courtyard before turning. “Ser Michel. I must apologise, I’ve been — busy.”

 

He smiled. “Since I have only just returned from Orlais, I must honestly but alas, discourteously admit I had not noticed.”

 

“Orlais?” Killeen said. “I thought you — that is, your circumstances.”

 

“The Inquisitor most kindly interceded for me with Empress Celene,” he said.

 

“Oh,” Killeen said. _Was Cullen right about him?_ “Congratulations. So you will be returning to court?”

 

“Not at all,” de Chevin said. “The Inquisition is not a cause to join only for lack of alternatives, and not one to abandon because one can.”

 

“Yes,” Killeen said, and smiled.

 

“Forgive my informality, but I saw you and could not resist the opportunity — will you join me for dinner tonight?”

 

“I — ah —” Killeen said. “I may have — that is, there is a lot of work, at the moment.”

 

“Of course,” de Chevin said. “If you are able to join me, I will be delighted. If you are not, I will be disappointed, but I will understand. Simply send word.” He bowed. “Until I see you again, Lieutenant.”

 

 _Well, shit_ , Killeen thought as she made her way down the stairs and across to the armoury. Michel De Chevin was extremely good-looking, charming, and now apparently once again rich and titled. _And he still wants to have dinner with me._

 

A part of her longed for the pleasant, uncomplicated company she knew the evening would bring — easy conversation, compliments, good food and wine. The alternative was whatever the mess was serving, eaten while working, bites of food in between discussions of troop movements and equipment supply.

 

And yet …

 

_And yet._

 

When Cullen touched her _hand_ she felt more than when Michel de Chevin kissed her lips.

 

De Chevin’s kiss had been nice, definitely. She would not have been distressed at a repetition. But even the _memory_ of Cullen’s thumb softly stroking her palm weakened her knees and set her heart racing.

 

 _No_. It would be unfair, to de Chevin, to continue to allow him to, as Leliana had said, _pay court_ to her.

 

She pushed open the door of the armoury and crossed to where Fel was studying the rack of swords. “How are you going?”

 

“Fine! What did Ser de Chien want?”

 

“De Chevin,” Killeen corrected. “Nothing you have to worry about.”

 

Fel stared up at her, eyes narrow, lips tight. “I don’t like him.”

 

“You’ve said,” Killeen said calmly. “How many of these swords are fit for purpose?”

 

Fel looked down at her slate, and Killeen hid a smile. _Distraction achieved._

 

They went through the whole armoury, and as far as Killeen considered the state of the equipment confirmed her suspicions of the latest Hinterlands shipment. She sent Fel to lunch, and jogged up the stairs to Cullen’s office to let him know he needed to raise the question with the other advisers.

 

She was both disappointed and relieved when the office was empty.

 

Leaving him a note, she went down to the stables to reassure Firefly she was not forgotten, and to make sure that Master Dennet’s boys were exercising both Firefly and Steelheart. They were, of course: Dennet would have thrown himself off the battlements before he let a horse in his care lack for what it needed. But, like all great horsemasters, he understood the special and at time peculiar relationship between horse and rider, and bore Killeen’s questions patiently.

 

“Tomorrow,” Killeen promised her mare, and headed toward the quartermaster.

 

That, and the subsequent errands, kept her busy throughout much of the afternoon. The Inquisitor’s work had vastly expanded the Inquisition’s reach and scope — which meant vastly expanded requests for assistance, support, and aid. Killeen disposed of the ones she could, noted the ones that would need more senior approval, kept Fel from either provoking the quartermaster and his staff to actual violence, and found herself in the courtyard with no urgent tasks and a headache that promised to crush her temples, given the chance.

 

“All right,” she said to Fel. “Time for you to learn how to keep your gear in good order.”

 

A peaceful half-an-hour patching her arming doublet while keeping an eye on Fel’s oiling of her cuirass lacing saw the ache behind her eyes recede.

 

“Putting children to work now, Killer?” Varric said, and Killeen looked up to see the dwarf watching Fel with a grin, Lady Cassandra beside him. “Missed a bit there, kid.” He pointed.

 

“Stop trying to change the subject,” Cassandra told him. She sounded annoyed, but then, Killeen thought, _she always sounds annoyed._

 

“I told you, Seeker, I’m not going to give you any spoilers,” Varric said, with a roll of his eyes. He sat down beside Fel and took out an apple. “Anyway, I’m busy helping the kid, here.”

 

“I don’t _need_ help,” Fel said promptly.

 

“See, she does not need help,” Cassandra said. She sat down as well, folding her arms and looking as if little short of a trebuchet would dislodge her. “I do not believe you even _know_ what will happen. That is why you haven’t finished your book, and why you will not tell me.”

 

“I know _exactly_ what will happen,” Varric said. “I’m a professional.”

 

“Then prove it,” Cassandra said.

 

Varric sighed. “All right. But don’t come whining to me when you don’t enjoy the finished product. Where are you up to?”

 

“The last chapter you wrote!” Cassandra said. “Ser Colin had just watched the woman he loves lead her forces out to face almost certain death, unable to follow because of his own duties. Did she survive? I _must_ know.”

 

“Of course she survived, Seeker, it’s only chapter three,” Varric said.

 

“And then what happened?” Cassandra demanded. “Did he declare his love?”

 

“Clearly not, or the book would be over before it began. No, once they’re both safe, he —”

 

“I know you always use real people in your books,” Killeen interrupted, “but don’t you think writing about the Inquisitor is a bit of, I don’t know, _lese majeste_ or something?”

 

“I don’t _always_ use real people —” Varric protested as Cassandra said in surprise:

 

“The _Inquisitor_?”

 

“You do,” Killeen said. “I recognised at least four people in _Hard in Hightown_.”

 

“Shut up, Seeker,” Varric said, giving Cassandra a sharp look before turning back to Killeen. “You read _Hard in Hightown,_ Killer? What did you think?”

 

“I got half-way through the first one,” Killeen said. “That scene where the Guards threatened to kill the Apostate’s children to make him tell them where the Summoning circle was being held was ridiculous.”

 

“Everyone’s a critic,” Varric muttered.

 

“Does Cullen know he’s in your book?” Killeen asked.  

 

“Ah, better to beg forgiveness than ask permission,” Varric said dismissively.

 

“I’d be begging forgiveness from Kirkwall if I were you,” Killeen advised. “Or possibly Rivain.”

 

“Nah, he’ll love it,” Varric said with what Killeen considered to be wholly unjustified confidence. “And it’s not  _just_ about him. There’s also Seraphine Pontilyet, Lorian Davus, and a bad tempered literature critic called  _Melissandra_.” Cassandra glared at him. “And lots of others. But Curly’s the lead. I mean, who else? It is a romance, and he’s the perfect romantic lead.”

 

“That is undeniable,” Cassandra said. “Blackwall has that  _beard_ , and Dorian is altogether too full of himself.”

 

“And my readers aren’t ready for a Qunari,” Varric said. “So it’s got to be the tall, fair-haired —”

 

“ _Golden_ haired,” Cassandra corrected.

 

“Golden-haired Commander, silhouetted against the setting sun as he grimly stares down the approaching armies of darkness.” Varric chuckled. “The ladies will swoon. Especially when I spend a page-and-a-half describing the scar on his face that he got saving a little girl from demons.”

 

Killeen frowned. “It wasn’t a little girl. It was Hugh Gothering, the wine merchant in Half Moon Street. And it wasn’t so much a demon as a donkey. Knocked Cullen straight into Gothering’s tasting table – and the glasses on it.”

 

“It’s  _fiction_ , Killer,” Varric said. “I’m going to make that horrible cloak of his sound attractive too. Especially when he shares it with the heroine to keep her warm on a long winter’s night.”

 

“It is fiction, yes, but it is based on fact,” Cassandra said. “And as you know very well, Varric, readers will assume that there is some truth in it. We must be accurate.”

 

“Still not loving this  _we_ ,” Varric grumbled.

 

“Does the Inquisitor know you’re doing this?” Killeen asked.

 

“She’s all for it,” Varric said, and to Killen it sounded as if he was telling the truth.

 

Killeen’s eyebrows went up. “And she doesn’t mind that you’re going to turn her into some sort of helpless maiden being rescued?”

 

“Nobody’s going to be  _helpless_ ,” Varric said.

 

“Isn’t that how romances go?” Killeen asked. “Heroes saving heroines?”

 

“Every woman wants to be rescued,” Varric said.

 

Cassandra frowned thunderously. “ _I_  do not.”

 

“Well, all right, every woman who doesn’t spend her waking life in prowling the countryside in armour looking for things to stab,” Varric conceded. “Which is to say, my readership.” He turned to Killeen. “What about you, Killer? Wouldn’t  _you_ like Curly to sweep you off your feet and carry you out of danger in his strong, manly arms?”

 

Killeen carefully kept her eyes on her lacing. “Have you  _looked_ at me, Varric?” she said lightly. “If Cullen tried to sweep me off my feet, he’d strain something.”

 

“Yes, but do you want him to,” Varric said, “that’s the question. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it, Killer, in all these months of working right next to him every day. He’s tall and handsome, you’re —”

 

“A soldier under his command,” Killeen said. “So the whole proposition is too absurd to contemplate.”

 

“Such things happen,” Cassandra said.

 

 “Not in well run companies,” Killeen said.

 

“Sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants, Killer,” Varric said.

 

Killeen pushed the leather thong through another hole, extremely careful not to let it twist, said finally: “I wouldn’t know.” She kept her tone casual with an effort. “You should sell a lot of copies, provided Thedas isn’t a howling wasteland populated by demons and slaves by the time you finish it.”

 

“I have faith in her Inquisitorialness,” Varric said.

 

“We shall prevail,” Cassandra said with finality. “There is no other option. And then — what will happen in your book, at the end?”

 

“ _That_ I haven’t worked out yet,” Varric said.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know that’s not how the war table mission goes!


	30. In The Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which certain questions are answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been pointed out to me that Michel de Chevin has a completely different backstory to the one I’ve given him. Sorry! That’s what happens when you start writing characters based on a few in game interactions without reading the wiki!
> 
> Also, this chapter may settle a few questions — not to everyone’s taste. Love & criticism equally welcome. I will now answer all questions about the plot so far.

 

Killeen was on the verge of sending a polite note to de Chevin several times during the afternoon, but each time decided against it.

 

She would have to be honest with him — at least, partly honest. But … she owed him to be honest to his face, rather than simply avoiding him, and so when the dinner hour came, she presented herself at his quarters.

 

The wine was better than ever, the food excellent, but for once the conversation was strained and awkward.

 

Finally de Chevin set down his glass. “Something is troubling you,” he said.

 

“Yes,” Killeen admitted. She turned her own glass between her fingers, eyes fixed on the deep red liquid. “I — I feel I ought to tell you — Michel, I —” She paused, took a gulp of wine for courage. “I’m sorry. I can’t continue to — my affections are …”

 

“Committed elsewhere, I know,” Michel said, surprising her.

 

“Oh,” she said. “So you understand, this is — this has been very pleasant but …”

 

“This has been very pleasant,” Michel said, “and it can continue to be very pleasant.”

 

She stared at him. “Oh. I thought you — I misunderstood.”

 

“You thought I wanted more than your occasional company,” Michel said, “and you were quite right.” He leaned forward and took her hand. “Lieutenant — Killeen. I have regained my title, but the lands that went with it have already been given to others, others the Empress cannot afford to offend. I must start again, and it may well be the work of more than one generation. I will need strong, clever sons and daughters. And I will need a wife who is an ally, who I can rely on to speak as I would speak, to order troops when I am not there, with a head for strategy and skill in battle.”

 

Killeen found her mouth hanging open, and shut it with a snap. “Ah —”

 

“These things are more important than transient passion,” Michel said. “So long as the children you bear are mine, I will have no objection to any other liaisons you pursue — if they are discreet.”

 

“Michel —” Killeen said. “That’s — ”  _Not something I can contemplate._

 

“Think about it,” he urged her. “A new great campaign, a new cause. The two of us, building something for our family that will last through the ages.”

 

For one surreal second, Killeen _did_ consider it : Michel and herself, talking over politics and battles over the dinner table as their children listened and learned; herself, rallying troops as the wife of a great chevalier; celebrating their success in some Great Hall that belonged to _her_ , and not to the Inquisitor.

 

Then she gently withdrew her hand from his. There was more than one reason it was an impossibility. “I’m flattered,” she said.

 

“You’re flattered,” Michel said, “ _but_ …”

 

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

 

“Ah, well,” he said, and smiled. “Such are the fortunes of life and love. I hope we can still be friends.”

 

“I’d like that,” Killeen said, and meant it.

 

As she made her way back along the walkway later, slightly light-headed from the wine, she found herself smiling. _Strong, clever sons and daughters … a marriage proposal as pragmatic as setting a stallion to a particular mare!_

 

Voices drifted up from the garden below her.

 

“I am telling you, Commander,” Cassandra was saying, “it is quite clear. I am very good at reading people.”

 

Cullen snorted. “You’re terrible at reading people.”

 

“ _Varric_ is very good at reading people,” Cassandra countered, “and he concurs.”

 

 _Must be about Bianca_ , Killeen thought as she passed out of earshot, _and her information about this lost thaig and the red lyrium_.

 

She went through the Great Hall, pausing for a word with Rylen about a couple of promising recruits who would suit that company, and headed to Cullen’s office.

 

It was empty. Killeen wondered if he’d gone to bed, and at the thought suddenly realised – she couldn’t possibly sleep there with him. Not after that morning, not after …

 

_His lips against her neck, breath stirring her hair, body pressed against hers …_

 

Heart racing at the memory, she crossed to Cullen’s desk, poured herself a goblet from the nearest wine bottle with hands that shook, and took a long gulp of the dreadful stuff. She couldn’t simply absent herself, leave him to wait out the dark watches of the night when his demons walked alone.

 

But what if it happened again?

 

_Oh, **Maker** , let it happen again …_

 

 _No_ , she told herself firmly. _Because what if it happens again and he wakes up?_ Killeen drank more of the wine, pacing. _Wakes up and realises I am so desperate for his touch I’ll accept even the humiliation of caresses he means for another._

 

 _It’s not as if I look even a little like her,_ she thought, and the idea of attempting to disguise herself as the Inquisitor to fool Cullen leapt into her head, complete with blond wig slipping askew and ill-fitting enchanter’s robes over her armour. She giggled aloud at her own absurdity.

 

“I hope that’s not another joke about nugs,” Cullen said. Killeen spun around so fast the room continued to turn for a second. Cullen was just closing the door behind him and he raised an eyebrow. “It isn’t, is it? Because I’ve barely recovered from the last one.”

 

Killeen covered her consternation by draining her goblet and refilling it. “No.”

 

He crossed to his desk, shuffled through the papers strewn across it. “Then what’s so funny?” he asked.

 

“Nothing. Just – something funny that happened, earlier.” And then, since he was regarding her expectantly, and because the longer she talked the longer it would be before either of them climbed the ladder to the loft and she had to work out a way to explain why she’d be sleeping in her bedroll from now on, she said the first thing that came into her head. “I got proposed to.”

 

Cullen went still, his face unreadable. One finger tapped the surface of the desk. “Oh?”

 

Killeen gulped wine. “I think so. It was a li’l – a _little_ hard to tell. Exactly. But telling a woman you want her to breed you strong sons sounds like it ought to be a proposal.”

 

“This was de Chevin?” Cullen asked.

 

She nodded, stopped nodding as the motion made the floor rock. “There was more. Leading armies and so on. It wasn’t just the broodmare stuff.”

 

“Someone should teach that chevalier some Ferelden manners,” Cullen said very evenly.

 

Killeen waved a hand. “He was qui’ nice ‘bout it. Falte – Flatten – Flattering.” She took another gulp from her goblet and pulled a face. “Your wine,” she told him, “is terrible.”

 

Cullen crossed to the desk, picked up the bottle and sniffed at it. “This isn’t wine,” he said. “It’s some Qunari spirit the Bull keeps telling me I should try. I use it to clean ink stains off my fingers.” He looked at her. “How much of this did you drink?”

 

She waved the goblet at him. “Thish mush. And a bit. More.”

 

Cullen plucked the goblet from her fingers, set it on the desk and took her elbow in a firm grip. “Come on.”

 

“Where?” Killeen asked as he marched her through the door. The cold night air hit her and her vision blurred, the wall walk tipping sideways. “Ooh. Dizzy.”

 

“Here,” Cullen said, steering her to the battlement. “Lean over, and put your fingers down your throat.”

 

“Ugh.” Killeen protested plaintively.

 

He pushed her firmly to the edge and bent her over it, a firm grip on her shoulder. “I saw the Inquisitor the morning after she drank a mug of that stuff. Believe me, this is for your own good. Do it. Or _I’ll_ do it.”

 

“Ashully,” Killeen mumbled, as the wall rocked beneath her, “don’ thin’ I’ll need –”

 

Cullen braced her as she coughed and retched and added interesting new stains to the keep’s external fortifications.

 

“Done?” he asked when she’d been still for a while.

 

“Yes,” Killeen said, and he hauled her back. “Ugh.” She was far from sober, but the stones of the walkway no longer tried to slide out from beneath her feet. “Why do you keep that stuff around? Without a label saying ‘paint-stripper’ or ‘poison’.”

 

“Didn’t the taste warn you?” Cullen asked.

 

“After the first mouthful, there wasn’t much of a taste.” Killeen said. She made a face, and, as if reading her mind, Cullen offered her his water flask. “Thanks.” She rinsed her mouth and spat over the edge of the wall, then drank more deeply and give him back the bottle.

 

“At least I got you _outside_ ,” Cullen said. “ _I_ haven’t always made it that far.”

 

It was the first time Killeen could remember he’d referred to the bouts of sudden nausea he’d endured when the effects of ceasing to take lyrium were at their worst. “You couldn’t help —” she started, then: “I didn’t mind.”

 

“That didn’t make it any more pleasant.” He took her elbow again. “You should walk,” he said. “It’ll help. And it’s a nice night for it.”

 

Killeen eyed the clouds scudding over the moon, hunched her shoulders against the knife-edge in the breeze. “A nice night for _what_?”

 

He glanced at her, glanced away. “For, ah, an evening … ”

 

“A nice night for an evening?” Killeen said. “Cullen, are you absolutely sure that I’m the one who’s drunk?”

 

He rubbed the back of his neck with the hand that wasn’t gripping her arm, and, in the moonlight, she was almost sure he was blushing. “Evening _walk_. A nice night for an evening walk. If you like, uh. Windy, um. Nights.”

 

“It’s all right for you,” Killeen said, eyeing his cloak.

 

To her utter and complete astonishment, Cullen let go of her elbow and put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her into the shelter of his cloak. “Not being a chevalier, I’m not chivalrous enough to freeze on your behalf,” he said. “We’ll just have to share.”

 

His body was fever-warm against hers after the chill of the breeze.

 

Killeen had lost count of the number of times she had imagined such a moment. If she turned, just a little, they would practically be in each other’s arms.

 

She kept her head down, concentrating on the stones they were standing on, so he would not see the heat in her cheeks, although there was nothing she could do about her heart, pounding so hard he could surely hear it even over the thin whine of the wind.

 

“I’m glad you’re not going to marry Michel de Chevin,” Cullen said.

 

“He’s not leaving the Inquisition,” Killeen said. It seemed important that he know that whatever happened, she would be there. “And even if he was going to, and I did – did decide to breed strong de Chevin sons and daughters — I wouldn’t leave you until all this is over.”

 

Somehow, they had stopped walking. Cullen’s arm was warm around her shoulders, his body a windbreak against the breeze. Killeen leaned back against the wall, feeling in need of a little support. He was just enough taller than her that she had to look up slightly to meet his gaze, unreadable in the shadows cast by the clouds sliding past the mood.

 

“I know,” he said softly. “That’s not why I’m glad. You deserve someone who see you as more than … a good business decision.”

 

Killeen looked away, managed to look back. “Chance’d be a fine thing,” she muttered.

 

Cullen seemed not to hear her. “Someone who thinks you’d give meaning to all his days and nights. Someone who’d think about you every moment he was away from you and look at you every moment you were together. Someone who would compare every woman he met to _you_ , and find them lacking.”

 

“I don’t think that’s Michel de Chevin,” Killeen said dryly.

 

“No,” Cullen said. “Neither do I.”

 

She took a breath. “Cullen — that’s not why I told him no. I — I don’t feel for him the way I … the way I feel for … someone else.”

 

“Someone else?”

 

She made herself smile, wondered if it looked as false as it felt. “I know, you’re going to take your revenge for all the teasing I dished out at Haven. But it’s true. I have … _feelings_. For someone.”

 

“Does he know?” Cullen asked.

 

“No,” Killeen said. “It’s … one of those utterly laughable, one-sided crushes. So go ahead. Make your jokes. I deserve them, I know.”

 

“Are you sure?” Cullen asked. He was very close to her now, hands on her shoulders. Her back was pressed against the cold stone of the wall, his breath stirred her hair.

 

Her voice came out huskier than she’d planned. “That I deserve it? Yes.”

 

“That it’s one-sided,” Cullen said softly, forehead resting against hers.

 

Without any direction from her brain, her hands lifted to rest against the smooth metal of his cuirass. “I —”

 

“I’ve thought about what I might say in this situation,” Cullen whispered. “You’re my second in command. We’re at war. And you … I didn’t think it was possible.” His lips brushed her temple, her cheek, and her knees weakened. “It seems too much to ask — but I want to — ”

 

Her voice deserting her, Killeen turned her face towards him, her answer in her parted lips.

 

He leaned toward her.  
  
"Commander!" a voice called.

 

Cullen released her abruptly, and turned on the interloper "What?" he snapped.

 

“The Inquisitor,” the man stammered. “At once, she said. The War Room. At once.”

 

Cullen half turned back toward Killeen. “I —”

 

“Go,” she said. They were soldiers; they lived their lives between emergencies and mustering calls. “Go. It’ll be important.”

 

“So is _this_ ,” he said, low and fierce.

 

Then, being a soldier, he turned and ran toward the stairs.

 


	31. In The Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Killeen reflects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one, as this bit of the next chapter got hived off. Another to follow once re-writes are done. Give it some love, even if it's short!

 

 

Killeen stood where Cullen had left her, leaning against the battlement, for a long moment after he had turned the corner of the stairs and disappeared from view.

 

_He was going to kiss me … he as good as said that he felt as I do, and then … he was going to kiss me._

 

There was, clearly, an emergency of some sort. Therefore, she herself, Lieutenant Killeen Hanmount, had things she ought to be doing.

 

_He almost kissed me._

 

Sobering up was definitely on that list.

 

_I’m almost sure he almost kissed me._

 

Propping up the keep’s fortifications like a love-sick maiden in one of Varric’s books was most certainly not.

 

_What was it, exactly, that he said? He asked me if I was sure my feelings were one-sided. That’s … well, it suggests he … but had I told him my feelings were for **him**?_

 

No.

 

The touch of his lips on her forehead and cheekbone surely had not been an accident … except they _had_ been standing close together. And what had he said? Killeen replayed it in her mind. I _’ve thought about what I might say in this situation … You’re my second in command. We’re at war. And you … I didn’t think it was possible. It seems too much to ask — but I want to —_

 

He had not said _which_ situation. He had not said _what_ it was that he wanted to ask.

 

Killeen knew should be mustering out her squad, sending runners to Rylen and the others. There might be little time to waste.

 

And yet she could not command her feet to move.

 

 _I cannot move my legs,_ she thought in Josephine Montilyet’s voice, and the memory brought a snort of laughter that shattered the spell that bound her. Shivering a little in the cold, she began to make her way back to Cullen’s office, cautioning herself against jumping to conclusions. They had been thrown together in recent days, by their work, by necessity, by Cullen’s struggle with the twin demons of lyrium and memory. His gratitude, her proximity … Killeen was familiar with the brief liaisons that sometimes occurred in the barracks, born of need and convenience, dying in the light of the next dawn.

 

And she had been drunk. _Was_ , still, drunk.

 

She stepped into Cullen’s office, having to concentrate a little to get the door latched behind her.

 

He had said she deserved someone _who thinks you’d give meaning to all his days and nights … who’d think about you every moment he was away from you and look at you every moment you were together._

 

He had not said he was that man.

 

And he had not actually kissed her — she had only thought he was about to. A kiss brushed against forehead or cheek: however it had made her feel, those were places a man could kiss his mother, his sister, his friend.

 

 And he was a decent man, a kind man, and he did wish the best for her. You deserve someone who loves you, he had said, and kissed her cheek.

 

The rest , the implications, the product of her fevered imagination.

 

Still, she could not quite crush the tiny spark of hope that it had not been — for even if it had been a momentary yielding to temptation of a man whose lover was away more often than not, that still meant that she tempted him, even if only briefly, even if only for a dozen heartbeats on a cloudy, wind-wracked night …

 

 _And what will you do if that’s the case?_ Killeen asked herself. _Dress up like a girl and prop yourself fetchingly against his desk?_ He was betrothed or nearly so, if what she had overheard was true, to another woman.

 

To the woman all their fortunes depended on.

 

Killeen cast one longing look at the bottle of Qunari spirits on Cullen’s desk, and went to plunge her head into the ice-rimmed water of the horse-trough, preparatory to calling out the troops. 


	32. In The Wilds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, Corypheus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And proper update

 

All day long, the noise of battle echoed through the idyllic glades and pathways of the Arbor Wilds.

 

It was the most beautiful place Killeen had ever fought in, and it was hardest battle of her life.

 

_Clear the path for the Inquisitor. Hold the path for the Inquisitor._

 

There had been scarcely a moment to draw breath since a messenger from the War Room had brought word that Corypheus was moving. A frantic rush to get the army moving; a boiling mass of horses and wagons in the courtyard; shouted orders, everything hurried.

 

It was Killeen’s job to be where Cullen couldn’t, to handle the things he had no time for, and so she had seen him only once in the midst of that organised chaos: Cullen headed one way across the lower bailey, herself the other, both in frantic haste. Cullen’s face had been the mask he wore as _Commander_ ; her own, Killeen knew, was similarly set. The only words they had exchanged had concerned tents and mess supplies.

 

In the harsh light of daylight on the road, it had been easy to believe that moment on the walls was nothing but a dream born of alcohol and her own desire.

 

Camp established, equipment checked, objectives established, Killeen had taken that memory out, held it in cupped hands, warmed herself with it … allowed herself to believe, for one carefully limited moment, that it was true.

 

And put it away, like everything else that might distract her in the fight ahead, shoving all of it into the chest she kept in her mind, closing the lid, turning the key.

 

_Clear the path for the Inquisitor. Hold the path for the Inquisitor._

 

Everything else was irrelevant.

 

They had many allies – Dalish elves, Orlesian chevaliers, irregular fighters from the Emerald Graves and the disciplined troops of Ferelden arls – but the foes they faced seemed bigger, stronger, faster than any before. Each yard of progress seemed to cost a life – whether taken by the troops of Corypheus or by the strange, half-seen figures who flickered in and out of view, striking with deadly precision.

 

 _Clear the path for the Inquisitor_ , Killeen thought grimly, stabbing and striking and barely holding her ground.  _Hold the path for the Inquisitor._

 

Neither were really possible. Soon there were groups of Inquisition troops or allies strung out along the route like beads on a string, each fighting to hold their particular glade, or hill, or pond. None could break through to their neighbours without losing the ground on which they fought.

 

_And none of us can stand alone for long._

 

She failed to parry a blow that knocked her helmet clean off and sent her, limbs like rubber, to the ground; rolled away from the next strike that would have taken off her head and got her shield up, got to her knees and then her feet, sword tip weaving, fighting nausea.

 

And then the Inquisitor came, Solas behind her, Blackwall using his shield as a battering ram and Sera firing arrows from the rear. The sallow, dark-haired mage Killeen had sometimes seen walking the garden was there as well. Together, they swept through the clearing Killeen and her soldiers had struggled to hold, disposing of the enemy, and then onward, the troops behind her swelling in number as she gathered more and more of the isolated bands in her wake.

 

They followed her down a long corridor of stone, broken in places by the work of trees and time, out into the light of day. A long bridge flanked with statues stretched toward a tall and elegant building, and a handful of hooded figures stood on the near end of the bridge, Corypheus looming over them.

 

As he strode toward them, the statues on either side of the bridge shuddered, were suddenly limned with light.

 

“Be honoured,” Corypheus declared. “Witness death at the hands of a new god!”

 

He leaned down and seized the nearest hooded figure, a man. The statues at either side of the bridge were suddenly incandescent. Their glow struck Corypheus, coruscated around him and around the man he held.

 

For a moment, it seemed to have no effect, and then, incredibly, his skin began to dissolve. The flesh was torn from his bones.

 

All of them, Corypheus, his victim, the other hooded figures, the statues — all exploded in a brilliant flash.

 

Killeen gaped at the empty bridge, the piles of ash, the sudden absence of Darkspawn Magisters from the dawn of time. _Gone_.

 

 _Over_.

 

Her knees buckled with relief. They had prevailed, when it had seemed for so long they would be lucky to simply survive, to live one more day and face one more battle. Now —

 

 “Look!” the Inquisitor shouted. “Samson made it across!” She leapt to her feet and ran for the bridge, closely followed by Solas and the others.

 

 _Not quite, not yet_ … Killeen struggled to rise, legs rubbery.

 

“Andraste preserve us ...” Cullen's voice was little more than a whisper, flat with shock.

 

Killeen raised her head and saw a dead body, the corpse of one of Corypheus’s wardens, move, and stir, and rise, and ...

 

The warden’s corpse threw back its head. Blood fountained from its mouth. It collapsed in a pool of black sludge.

 

And rose as … _Corypheus_.

 

“Maker,” Killeen said, and for perhaps the first time in her life it was a prayer made sincere by desperation.  _Varric was right._

 

_He can't be killed._

 

_He can't be beaten._

 

From above their heads, the dragon of Corypheus swooped down, sweeping over the bridge and blasting the doors of the building opposite with its terrible fire.

 

Killeen stared blankly, and then Cullen had her by the arm. He hauled her to her feet. “Retreat,” he said. “That’s all we can do. She got into the Temple. We can’t fight that  _thing_ , not without her.”

 

“We can’t fight it at all,” Killeen said numbly.

 

Cullen shook her slightly. “Soldier, you have an order,” he said crisply, and the fog of horror lifted slightly.

 

 _Don’t think about it. Don’t think. Act._  “Yes, ser,” she said, and turned to follow his order.

 

Not all the Red Templars had been killed in the Inquisitor’s advance, and it was cruel irony that they lost even more of their soldiers on the retreat back to the camp: men and women killed after the battle had been won, won and then proved useless.

 

Later, Killeen would only remember flashes of it: a hideous figure looming suddenly before her, or a shout from behind cut short in a horrible, bloody gurgle.

 

She found herself standing in the camp, sword bloody to the hilt, half-blind with sweat, as all around her were shouts and confusion as the army prepared to move in a hurry. Nearby, she could hear Cullen, voice raised, letting a wagoneer know exactly what he thought of him.

 

Wiping her sword on the grass, Killeen sheathed it and went to bring some order to the process of departure.

 

In the chaos, she didn’t see Cullen again until they were on the move, when he reined Steelheart out of his place at the head of the cavalcade and waited for the train to move past him. As Killeen came abreast of him, he slipped Steelheart in beside her. Firefly, well rested during the day and without the oppressive weight of horror that lay over her rider, whickered gently to greet her stablemate.

 

There were no doubt words to say at a time like this, but Killeen couldn’t think of any of them. “Have you eaten?” she asked at last, voice little more than a croak.  _Not that it matters._

 

_Nothing matters._

 

_We’re already dead._

 

_Us. Everyone who we defend. Dennet, Adan. Harritt, Mother Giselle. Fel._

 

“Yes,” Cullen said, his own voice hoarse from hours bellowing orders. “You?”

 

Killeen shook her head. “No time.”

 

“Make sure you get something,” he said.

 

A dispatch rider came racing along the edge of the procession with a message that took Cullen back to his position in the vanguard. Killeen watched him go, still upright in the saddle, chin high.  _Giving heart to an army that he can’t afford to allow to realise just how utterly beaten we are._

 

Hours, days — Killeen couldn’t tell — of riding, and they reached Skyhold. Numbly, she took care of Firefly, checked that Dennet’s boys were taking proper care of Steelheart.

 

Found herself standing in the lower courtyard with no thought of where to go or what to do.

 

_Corypheus can’t be beaten._

 

_We can’t win._

 

_We’re already dead._

 

The future held nothing but an endless, futile struggle against an enemy who could be held off, but never, ever defeated.  _This must be what people feel when they realise they’ve been blighted,_ Killeen thought, head pounding.  _As if the future has turned to ashes in their hands, as if there is nothing before them but a long, hard road, without rest or shade or shelter, growing harder and steeper every day, nothing but stone and sand all around._

 

_And leading nowhere good._

 

Training took over: training designed to keep soldiers like her on their feet, doing their duty, long past the point where heart and will and soul had quit. She climbed the stairs to the upper courtyard, had to stand a moment to get her breath, and then made it up the next flight to Cullen’s office.

 

_Empty._

 

 _War room,_  the part of her mind still running on the rails of habit provided. War room.

 

She took the shortcut, ignoring Solas as she passed him, ignoring everyone in the Great Hall.

 

As she passed through the Ambassador’s office, Lady Montilyet raised her voice. “Lieutenant.  _Lieutenant_?”

 

Killeen paused, turned. “Yes?”

 

“If you are looking for the Commander, I believe he is in the chapel.”

 

“Oh,” Killeen said. “Thank you.”  _Of course he wishes to pray._

 

She made her way to the garden. _When there is no hope, no plan, no chance — what is there to do, but pray? Even if those prayers are to a Maker who has turned his back to us, left us to face this horror alone, who could save us but refuses to — what is there to do, but pray?_

 

Killeen could not bear to go into the chapel, herself, into a place consecrated to the worship of a god so indifferent, so careless, so _cruel_. Instead, she sank down on the bench by the door, elbows on knees, head hanging.

 

She could hear Cullen’s voice, that familiar, light, warm voice that had been a constant in all her days for so long now she could not remember the first time she heard it. “Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the maker be my guide.”

 

 _Does he truly believe it?_ Killeen wondered. Always, she had taken Cullen’s faith at face value – he  _believed_ , in a way she could not. _And now, all before us **is**  in shadow. And where is the Maker’s guidance?_

 

A footfall. Killeen raised her head and saw the Inquisitor. She looked as weary as they all did, and Killeen felt a stab of sympathy for this young woman, cast so unprepared into such great responsibility.

 

_And knowing now, as we all do, that she will inevitably, **must** inevitably, fail._

 

“I was looking for Cullen,” the Inquisitor said.

 

“He’s inside,” Killeen told her.

 

Still, the Inquisitor hesitated. “You didn’t wish to join him?” and when Killeen shook her head: “You don’t believe?”

 

“I believe in the maker,” Killeen said wearily. “I just don’t think he believes in  _me_.”

 

“Have hope,” the Inquisitor said. She touched Killeen’s shoulder gently, and went inside.

 

_Of **course** she believes. Something else she shares with Cullen._

 

Killeen closed her eyes and let her heavy head sink back to her hands.

 

She could still hear Cullen’s voice. “I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the beyond. For there is no darkness in the maker’s light, and nothing he has wrought shall be lost.”

 

The Inquisitor’s clipped, refined tones. “A prayer for you?”

 

“For those we have lost,” Cullen said. “And those I am _afraid_ to lose.”

 

“You’re afraid?” the Inquisitor asked.

 

 _Of course he is_ , Killeen thought. _How could any of us not be?_

 

Cullen echoed her thoughts. “Of course I am. Corypheus possessed that Grey Warden at Mythal. Who knows what he’s capable of? It’s only a matter of time before he retaliates. We must draw strength where-ever we can.” He paused. “When the time comes …” He said something too softly for Killeen to hear, and then: “Andraste preserve me. I must …” His voice trailed away to silence.

 

“Cullen,” the Inquisitor said. “I know how hard it must be to think of losing who you love. But look at everything we’ve accomplished.” She paused. “I’m ready for this. We _all_ are.”

 

He sighed. “We would not be here without you. Whatever happens, you will come back.”

 

 _Yes, **she** will_ Killeen thought, her eyes closing with weariness, her mind blurring. _Of **course** she will._

 

_She’s the Inquisitor. Of **course** she’ll come back._

 

_It’s the rest of us who are dead._


	33. In The Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which no-one says goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am (slightly) rewriting the final battle and the scenes before it for dramatic purposes. I know I keep promising it’s nearly over — it really is only a few more chapters now! I’m publishing as fast as I write, so do give each chapter some love as you go through.

 

Killeen drifted slowly up out of the slow rolling surf of sleep.

 

She was used to waking instantly, to an alarm, a muster bell, or the slight change in Cullen’s breathing that told her he was no longer sleeping peacefully, but weariness lay over her like a shroud, weighing her down.

 

Beneath her was a hard, cold surface, contrasting with the soft, warm weight across her and the solid presence cushioning her head. Killeen couldn’t make sense of any of it, couldn’t summon up the energy to try.

 

“Everyone says so,” a small, piping voice said.

 

“Everyone?” That was Cullen, and he sounded faintly amused.

 

“Ser Dorian also said,” Fel told him, for Killeen recognised the thin little voice now as Felandris, “that if you took much longer about it, he’d start to think he had a chance with you.”

 

Killeen fought her way through the last veils of sleep. The cold surface beneath her was a stone bench; the warmth that covered her a cloak, its fur trimming tickling her cheek; her head rested on someone’s leg.

 

Cullen’s leg, she realised as he spoke again. “Perhaps Ser Dorian should mind his own business.”

 

Killeen opened her eyes, and lifted herself on her elbow. The bench she lay on was the one by the chapel doors, over-looking the garden; the cloak covering her was Cullen’s appalling mutli-coloured bearskin. The early morning light lay soft and luminescent across the garden, although it had not yet reached the chill shadows of the walkway.

 

“Good morning!” Fel said brightly. “Did you sleep well?”

 

“Ungh,” Killeen managed, as Cullen put his hand beneath her elbow and helped her sit up. She coughed, and tried again: “Why didn’t you wake me?”

 

“I tried,” Cullen said with a slight smile. “You told me to —” he glanced at Fel. “You expressed yourself vigorously, and went back to sleep.”

 

“I don’t remember that,” Killeen said. She scrubbed her hands over her face, grimaced. “I think something crawled into my mouth and died.”

 

Cullen glanced down and brushed at his breeches. “Perhaps I should have mentioned, you threw up on my leg in between the cursing and the sleeping. Which is when I realised you weren’t just napping on duty. Didn’t you think to mention to anyone you’d taken a blow to the head?”

 

Killeen thought back. Disjointed images of battle, only a vague recollection of the ride, a flash of unsaddling Firefly: of Cullen’s voice, speaking to someone else. Speaking to the Inquisitor. _Whatever happens, you **will** come back to me_. “I don’t remember,” she said again.

 

“Fortunately, the Inquisitor was here,” Cullen said. “She said you’ll be fine, with rest. Can you face breakfast?”

 

“I think so,” Killeen said. She essayed to stand, and Cullen rose as well, steadying her. “What did I miss?”

 

“The Inquisitor has a plan,” Cullen said, hand warm and strong beneath her elbow. “Or, Morrigan does. They found an Elven ruin that Morrigan believes holds the key to defeating Corypheus.”

 

“ _Defeating_ him?” Killeen stared at him. “Didn’t they _see_ him —” She remembered Fel. _No need for her to know, before she has to._ “You were there, Cullen. Did you _tell_ her?”

 

“She saw,” Cullen said. “She’s still certain there’s a chance. They’re in the war-room now.”

 

Killeen frowned. “Shouldn’t you be there?”

 

“The military commander’s not much use without the military,” Cullen said wryly. “The majority of the army is still making its way back from the Arbor Wilds, and the troops that are here are hardly in shape for battle.”

 

“So we’re —” Killeen glanced at Fel. “Fel, we need a tally of the herb garden’s yield. There will be injured soldiers coming in with the army.”

 

“In a minute!” Fel said, staring at Cullen so hard she was almost cross-eyed.

 

“ _Now_ ,” Killeen said.

 

“But —”

 

“Go on,” Cullen said, the corner of his mouth twitching up.

 

Fel narrowed her eyes at him. “You’d better _tell_ me,” she said. “I promised Varric, and he’s keeping the _book_.”

 

Cullen winced slightly. “I promise. Go on.”

 

With a final glare, Fel turned and flounced off to the pots of herbs, pulling her slate from her belt.

 

“Book?” Killeen said, feeling as if she’d missed something.

 

Cullen blushed slightly and rubbed the back of his neck. “It doesn’t matter. What where you going to say?”

 

“I —” The thought skittered away like a minnow chased through shallow water. Killeen concentrated, pinned it down. “We’re helpless.”

 

“We’re in better shape than Corypheus,” Cullen said. “His army is destroyed, his allies have abandoned him. Samson is in the cells awaiting judgement. We’ve foiled his every aim.”

 

“Cullen,” Killeen said. “ _He can’t die._ Whatever we do just buys time.”

 

“The Inquisitor says he _can_ be killed,” Cullen said. “At least, by her.” He took her hands. “We’ll be ready for him, Kill. Haven — will not happen again.”

 

“If the Inquisitor is the one who can kill Corypheus,” Killeen said, “we’d better make damn sure it _doesn’t_. No more running off to sacrifice herself for the rest of us. We’d better make damn sure we get her in front of him and keep whatever forces Corypheus still has off her back.”

 

“We will,” Cullen said. “And then —” He paused, looked down at their linked hands. “When this war started, I — well, I hadn’t considered much beyond our survival. But things are different now.”

 

Killeen swallowed past the sudden, painful lump in her throat. _Of course. Of course he is thinking of a future past all this, a future with **her** , the wedding everyone is gossiping about, no doubt some adorable blond-haired mage babies to follow …_ She couldn’t bring herself to speak, but nodded.

 

“I find myself wondering,” Cullen said, “what will happen after.” Even the thought of the Inquisitor lit his face with happiness. “When this is over, I won’t want to move on.”

 

It took a breath, then a second, before Killeen could speak with reasonable composure. “I understand.”

 

“ _Do_ you?” Cullen asked softly. “Because —”

 

And the sky turned green.

 

Killeen’s first thought was to thank the Maker for stopping Cullen there. She didn’t think she could have endured hearing him explain that moment on the walls as a fleeting error of judgement, a never-to-be-repeated mistake.

 

Her second was _So much for being ready._

 

Cullen dropped her hands, staring upwards. “I —”

 

Killeen nodded. “Go. I’ll sound the alarm.”

 

As Cullen turned and ran toward the door that would take him to the War Room, Killeen took four long strides into the garden and seized Fel’s shoulder, making the final ‘t’ in the girl’s careful ‘elfroot’ skid sideways and down. “Fel, honey, run to your mother. Right now.”

 

The girl took one look at Killeen’s face, took a look at the sky, nodded, and ran.

 

Killeen watched her go, skinny legs pumping, little fists still clutching slate and chalk.

 

Something she had no name for tore in her chest.

 

Then she turned and ran herself, pausing long enough in the upper courtyard to order Arms, to arms and then plunging down the second staircase and setting out for the stables at a sprint.

 

Master Dennet and his stable-boys had seen the sky as well. The stables were boiling with activity, the Inquisitor’s charger being led out, saddles and tack being hauled out and fitted to horses.

 

 _I can’t do this on an empty stomach,_ Killeen thought with calm practicality. She jogged up the stairs to the kitchen and commandeered several rolls, trotted back and ate them as the stable-hands finished their work and her own squad — _or what’s left of it still able to back a horse_ — came pelting up in response to the alarm bell.

 

She took Firefly’s reins from Master Dennet as her squad sorted themselves out, matching trooper to horse. _Come on, come on_ , she willed them. _No time, no time. Come on!_

 

“Kill,” Cullen said softly behind her.

 

She knew everything he was going to say in that moment. _Can you do what I do?_ Cole had asked her once, on the snowy march from ruined Haven. _Hear people thinking?_

 

_Only Cullen._

 

_Only and always, Cullen._

 

“Yeah,” she said, turning.

 

He was pale, face set. “It’s Haven. There’s no way the rest of the army can —”

 

The squad would be held back to the pace of the slowest. They couldn’t possibly keep up with the Inquisitor and her companions in a hard, forced ride. _But we can follow. We can keep whatever Corypheus has waiting off her back._ “Yeah.”

 

“Kill. She has to —”

 

“ _Yeah_.” Killeen turned away from him and leaned her head against Firefly’s mane, closed her eyes. _Hold the objective. Die, if necessary — live if you can, but die if you must. **Hold the objective.**_ “I’ll keep them off her. The rest will have to be up to her.”

 

“Kill —”

 

“ _No,_ ” Killeen said sharply. _Don’t you do that. Don’t you **dare** tell me to be careful, or to come back. Don’t you **dare** put those thoughts in my head._

 

She stepped back, raised a foot for the stirrup, and then Cullen was kneeling beside the horse, hands linked, ready to do her a squire’s duty.

 

Killeen looked down at his bowed head, hair tarnished by the sky’s sickly green glow, at the long line of his neck and the strength of his shoulders.

 

Then she stepped into his cupped hands, and he threw her up onto Firefly’s back.

 

Killeen turned the mare in a tight circle under the gates, headed her towards the open road, and set her heels in hard. Her squad following, they thundered across the bridge and onto the road to Haven.

 

She didn’t look back.


	34. As Night Falls.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which doom upon all the world.

 

Hard as they rode, they would have still been too late if there had not already been Inquisition forces at Haven. No many, and fewer still by the time Killeen’s squad thundered up the path, scattering hurlocks and gemlocks, across the melted rock of the plane and through the ruined gates.

Without her needing to order it, First Company dismounted and went to form a shield wall across the gap, giving Leliana’s scouts a much needed respite. Second tended to the horses.

Killeen flung herself down from Firefly and tossed the reins to the soldier waiting for them. She looked around, spotted a familiar face. “Report,” she ordered crisply.

“Maker, we’re glad to see _you_ ,” Scout Harding said. Her usually amiable face was set, drawn with lines of pain, and Killeen could see the stump of an arrow in her arm, hastily bound. “The Inquisitor got through. She’s up _there_.” Killeen turned to see what remained of the Temple of Sacred Ashes somehow far above them, a narrow winding path leading upwards. “So is Corypheus. We’ve been trying to hold here. I sent a scout to see if there’s a better choke point further up, but this seems to be our best chance.”

“Then this is where we’ll stand,” Killeen said.

“I’ve never _seen_ so many darkspawn,” Harding said. “It’s like a Blight. Maybe that dragon really _is_ an archdemon.”

Killeen peered out through the gate, careful not to expose herself to any archers. “No. I’ve seen a Blight. Darkspawn act different when there’s an archdemon directing them — more like us. These are … they could have broken through before we came, but they didn’t.”

“Any that tried got arrows in the face,” Harding said.

Killeen looked down at her. “I’m not doubting it,” she said. “Or that you’ve been hard pressed. But well-trained soldiers would have kept coming, won by numbers. Darkspawn during a blight would do the same.”

Harding nodded. “So, no archdemon. Maybe we’ve got a chance.”

Killeen glanced out at the mass of darkspawn, growing in numbers, and made no comment. “Take a break,” she said. “Get that arm seen to properly. We don’t know how long it will be before the Inquisitor returns.”

_**If** she returns._

She shut down that thought as useless speculation. _She has her objective, I have mine._

The odds for the Inquisition forces were better with the addition of Killeen and her squad, but they were far from what she would have considered _good_. The gate was defensible, and the soldiers gave a good account of themselves to any darkspawn who made it through the hail of arrows, but there were archers on the other side as well, and every now and then their shots struck true. Eventually, there would not be another soldier to step forward into the shield wall; eventually, there would be gaps, and then …

A fighting retreat up the stairs would slow the darkspawn’s advance, buy the Inquisitor more time for whatever the mage was going to do up in the cloud-wreathed upper levels of the impossibly distorted Temple.

But the horses could never manage those crooked, twisting stairs.

Killeen stopped one of Harding’s people, an elf whose broken left arm was keeping him out of combat and who was bringing water to the front line instead. “Are you right or left handed?”

“Right, ser,” he said.

“Do you have a knife?”

He nodded.

“If they break through,” Killeen said, “kill the horses. They don’t deserve what those things will do to them. Fast and painless, do you know how?”

“Yes, ser,” he said, face pale.

“Good.” Killeen released his arm. “If it comes to that — start with mine.”

Firefly would never know the poisoned touch of the blight, would not end her days maddened by fear and pain.

Would run free, would run forever.

“What the fuck is that?” Harding said, and Killeen went to look.

A massive shape, looming over the other darkspawn, bellowing orders through sharpened teeth, directing their movements with sweeping gestures of its arms. Killeen had never seen an Alpha Hurlock, but she’d heard stories, seen pictures sketched by some of those few to survive meeting one.

“Their general,” she said, realising it was true. “That’s why there’s so many, why they aren’t fighting each other or looking for easier prey.”

“They’re loyal to it?” Harding asked.

“They’re _afraid_ of it,” Killeen said, seeing the smaller darkspawn cringe away from the Alpha even as they obeyed its commands. “Can you shoot it?”

Harding raised her bow, squinted, and then lowered it, shaking her head. “Too far. I’ve one heavy shaft left, but with that armour, anything over ten yards would glance off.”

“They’re smart,” Killeen said, remembering the stories. “As well as strong, and fast. It won’t expose itself to us if it can help it.”

“Maybe a sortie?” Harding suggested, but Killeen shook her head.

“It’d hang back and let us be cut to ribbons on the way. And even if we did make it, I read once that one of those things killed an Arl and all his personal guard — with its bare hands, while chained up.”

“Well, shit,” Harding said.

Killeen looked at the Alpha Hurlock, looked at the way it had to threaten and chivvy and cuff to force its troops forward. “Harding,” she said. “Are you absolutely sure you could kill it if it was close enough to get through the armour?”

“Oh, sure,” Harding said. “At ten yards I can punch through plate like paper.”

No human soldier could face that thing on foot. _But_ … “Find me an Inquisition flag,” Killeen said, and went to get her horse.

They found her a flag, a little tattered, a few blood stains. Killeen led Firefly to the gate, talking softly to her as the mare’s ear’s flicked at the scent of darkspawn and blood. “I know this isn’t what you’re used to, my darling. I know it’s scary. But trust me, my sweetheart. Just like with Michel, remember? Turn and weave, dodge and spin. You know how to do it. Don’t be afraid.”

She mounted, raised the flag high. “Cover me as well as you can,” she ordered. “Encourage the smaller ones to stay away from the gate. And Harding — _don’t miss_.”

The shield wall parted for her, closed again as she walked Firefly through, flag held high. The mare shivered slightly, skin twitching, as Killeen paraded her before the massed Darkspawn, but her head stayed high, her steps were steady.

“Good girl,” Killeen whispered. “Good, brave, beautiful girl.”

She hoisted the flag, and with her other hand took the horn from her belt and raised it to her lips. The long, taunting note of her challenge rang out across the space between her and the enemy.

The Alpha Hurlock bellowed, and urged his troops forward. A few obeyed and fell, pierced by Inquisition arrows.

Killeen blew the horn again, then let it fall. She stood in the stirrups. “Where is _your_ champion?” she shouted. “Afraid, it seems!” An uneasy shifting in the force across the melted plain. “Afraid to face me?”

The Alpha growled, swiped at the darkspawn near him. They cowered back out of reach, but did not move toward Killeen.

She urged Firefly one step away from the gate, another, and tossed the banner aside. Drawing her sword, she raised it above her head. “Face _me_ , if you dare!” Another step, one more, moving out of the bow-shot range the Alpha would know to avoid. “ _Do_ you dare?”

It snarled, and charged.

Killeen urged Firefly into movement, knowing they had no chance if that massive shape caught them flat footed. _If I fall back now, is it smart enough to sense my plan? Possibly._

_Can’t take the risk._

She met it between the two forces, ducking low in the saddle as a blow whistled past her head and cutting backhanded into the weak point where cuirass met cuisse. Firefly responded to the pressure of her knee, turned on a coin and was back behind the Alpha before it could spin. Killeen thrust, wheeled the mare away, had to slide half out of the saddle to avoid a return blow which would have broken her arm.

Firefly shifted underneath her again, pivoted, gamely charged. They spun and dodged, Killeen slashing and cutting, her blows doing little damage but enraging the Alpha Hurlock as it tried again and again to land a killing blow, and again and again Firefly kept Killeen out of reach, sweat lathering the mare’s neck and foam flying from her lips.

Killeen was tiring too. _Time_ , she thought. _If this is going to work, it has to work now._

She turned Firefly toward the gates and sent the mare flying back toward their lines. Behind her, she could hear the Alpha Hurlock’s pounding footsteps as the creature saw its impudent challenger fleeing for her life. _That’s it, you bastard_ , Killeen thought. _I’m running from you. Teach me a lesson, come on, come on —_

They had nearly made it when Firefly slipped on the slick, melted rock and went down.

Killeen felt her thighbone shatter beneath the mare’s weight, retched with pain as Firefly struggled to get to her feet. _Foot — stirrup — quick —_ Reaching down she managed to grab her ankle and drag her foot clear of the stirrup before Firefly rose. “ _Go_ ,” she urged the mare breathlessly, and turned to see the Alpha Hurlock looming over her.

It did not raise its sword. _Not yet,_ Killeen thought. _It wants me to know. It wants me to fear — me, and all those darkspawn obeying it out of their own fear._

“Go,” she said again as Firefly neighed in fear, then leaned down to nuzzle Killeen’s face. Loose reins flapped against the mare’s neck.

Killeen raised herself on her elbow and managed to get them in her hand, and as if that was what the mare had planned all along, Firefly began to back toward the gate, toward the Inquisition lines and safety.

The Alpha Hurlock laughed, an evil, mocking sound, and followed, step by step, keeping Killeen in reach as she clung to the reins, trying not to think of what her weight was doing to Firefly’s mouth, trying to breathe through the agonising bolts of pain that every jolt sent through her leg. _It will let me get within a handspan of safety_ , Killeen thought, _and **then** kill me._

A step by Firefly, and one by the Hurlock. Another. Another.

The creature said, in a voice clearly meant to carry to the Inquisition troops: “ _Now_ who fears?”

It raised its sword.

And an arrow flew hissing through the air from behind Killeen and struck the darkspawn straight through the eye.

 _About fucking time, Harding,_ Killeen thought, and let Firefly’s reins go as the Alpha Hurlock fell, without a sound, stone dead in an instant. Behind it, Killeen could see the ranks of the darkspawn waver. Already a few near the edges were melting away.

She let her head fall back on the rock and stared up at the boiling green sky. Somewhere, orders were being barked to provide cover, to form a wedge, to _go and get the Lieutenant._

 _That’s going to hurt_ , Killeen thought, and then blinked. Far above her she could see a winged speck, seemingly launched from the top of the Temple. _A bird? What bird would fly in **this**?_

It grew larger, larger still, and she saw the long neck, the thrashing head trailing fire, the tail. _The dragon_. No creature moved like that unless in its death throes, writhing in final agony, which meant the Inquisitor was still alive, up there, somewhere, had struck down the Magister’s mightiest ally, and might, perhaps, have a chance against Corypheus himself.

It was falling fast, too wounded to try and brake its earthward plummet, plunging at breakneck speed toward her, flames and blood spurting from its mouth.

“ _Hurry_!” someone screamed, and someone else: “Too late! _Get back_!”

Killeen realised that she was directly below the dragon precisely one second too late to do anything but fling her arms over her face.

_Red. Heat. Pain._

Darkness.

 

 

 

 


	35. Twlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a cliffhanger is resolved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realise that some aspects of this may not accord with the wider DA canon about spirits and so on. Also, if you’re reading these latest ones all in one go, don’t wait until the last one to offer some feedbacky love!

 

Killeen rose to her feet.

 

Somewhere nearby, she could hear voices. One, a gravelly rasp, was familiar. _Say that again, I have to get this down. Andraste’s tits, this is going to sell like hotcakes._

 

The fair-haired elf who Varric called Buttercup laughed. _She said, you wanted into the Fade? And then bam, she ripped him a new one. Literally. It was great! Could’ve kicked him in the ballsack first, of course. That would have been greater._

 

Killeen moved toward the voices, rounded the corner of the wall and saw the Inquisitor and her closest companions. Their voices were clear, but very far away, and they and the stones on which they stood were strangely misty.

 

_Victorious, I see,_ said the dark-haired mage from the Orlesian court. _What a novel result._

 

“Victorious,” Killeen said, to see what the word felt like in her mouth, what the idea felt like in her mind. “Victorious.”

 

None of them seemed to hear her, although the night was still and clear beneath the starless sky. She saw Dorian, leaning on his staff, Blackwall with his shield half black with soot. _I wonder if he killed the dragon,_ Killeen thought. _The false warden killing the fake archdemon. Varric will appreciate that._

 

“No.”

 

It was Cole, and of all of them, he seemed the sharpest and clearest, and, Killeen realised, he was the only one who seemed to see her.

 

“No,” he said again. “ _No_. Go back, hurry!”

 

_Back_. At the thought she remembered the broken body she had left lying by the crumbling remnants of the dragon, and drew away from Cole.

 

“You have to,” he said urgently.

 

“It will hurt.”

 

“Yes,” Cole said. “It will. A lot. But I’ll help, I promise.”

 

_Cole?_ the Inquisitor asked. _What is it?_

 

“Broken, burnt, bleeding,” Cole said. “But still a thread. Find her.” And then, to Killeen: “Go _back_! Go back _now_!”

 

As if his words had the force of a spell Killeen found herself flying backwards, downward, faster and faster, the world blurring into dimness until she landed —

 

The pain was so great she tried immediately to fling herself away from it once more but it had its teeth in her, tearing into her side in overwhelming stabs of agony, and her efforts only jerked her arms and legs, which hurt more, _Maker, hurts hurts hurts …_

 

“Over here!”

 

“Harding?” the Inquisitor’s voice said somewhere past the great red waves of pain that tumbled Killeen over and down. “Harding, can you hear me?”

 

“Hello, your worship,” Scout Harding said weakly. “Good to see you. Ouch.”

 

“Hold on,” the Inquisitor said. “You’ll be all right. What happened here?”

 

“Darkspawn,” Harding said. “A lot of them. And then a dragon fell just about on top of us.”

 

“ _Not her_ ,” Cole almost shouted. “Here!” His voice was close, and Killeen opened her eyes, saw his thin pale face through the haze descending over her vision. He reached down and touched her face. “Kind eyes and cruel jokes, stronger when she holds him. _Don’t leave me_.”

 

Then Cole’s face was replaced by the Inquisitor’s. “Maker’s _breath_ ,” she said. Green light spread out from her hands, washed over Killeen, brought a lessening of pain. “Vivienne! Hurry! I’m not sure I know —”

 

Madame de Fer’s dark face, without mockery in her eyes for once. “We must stop the bleeding.”

 

Killeen tried to speak, but her lips and tongue were cold and thick. _Firefly. If **I’m** still alive …_

 

“Her horse,” Cole said. “She wants her horse to be all right.”

 

“Let’s get you taken care of, first,” the Inquisitor said gently, and Killeen was seized with panic. _Firefly, dying, brave, beautiful mare, waiting for her rider to help, waiting and waiting …_ She tried to tell them, struggling against their gentle hands, tasting blood as something torn inside tore more at the movement.

 

A long dark finger touched her between the brows. “Sleep,” said Lady Vivienne, and Killeen did.

 

_Stars swinging crazily overhead in a sky miraculous clear of sickly yellow-green. Faces looking down at her, gentle hands touching, voices murmuring comfort. Pain again, then gone once more, then back, then gone._

 

_Time passing. She drifts, returns to stone above her, familiar, the wrong angle. Cool, fresh mountain air, an archway. Torches. A doorway. Hands lift her from the stretcher to a bed and it hurts so much she’s blind and deaf for a moment._

 

“There, now,” Lady Vivienne said, hand on her forehead. “That’s the worst over.”

 

From behind Vivianne, Killeen heard the Inquisitor say, voice soft but urgent: “Cullen. It’s —”

 

Vivienne moved, and past her in the doorway Killeen saw the Inquisitor reach out to take Cullen in her arms, cradling his head against her shoulder, murmuring too quietly for Killeen to hear. Saw him wrap her in his embrace, shoulders shaking with the relief of having her once more in his arms.

 

Killeen closed her eyes and let the undertow take her.

 

_Let the blade pass through the flesh, let my blood touch the ground, let my cries touch their hearts._ The words swirled past her, a low familiar mutter made ragged by strain. _Let mine be the last sacrifice … for earth, sky; for winter, summer; for darkness, Light …all that the Maker has wrought is in His hand, beloved and precious to Him._

 

Opening her eyes, Killeen saw a wooden ceiling, dimly lit by the glow of candles. She tried to turn her head and failed. In the corner of her vision she could see Cullen kneeling by her bed, head bowed over clasped hands, so close that if she could have moved her hand she would have brushed his golden hair with her fingertips. Beside him knelt the Inquisitor, hands wrapped around his.

 

“Cullen, at least for a little while. You can’t go on like this,” the Inquisitor said.

 

Cullen didn’t seem to hear. “The Light shall lead her safely through the paths of this world,” he said hoarsely, “and into the next. For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water.”

 

_Water_. Killeen realised her mouth was dry as the Hissing Wastes. _Water_ , she tried to ask.

 

No words came out.

 

“Cullen,” the Inquisitor said again. “Do I have to order you?”

 

Killeen closed her eyes again, so as not to see him leave, drifted a while in the dim place that she had been inhabiting recently, not quite asleep, unable to wake. From time to time hands touched her, brought pain, took pain away. A cup was held to her lips, cool water, not as much as she wanted.

 

She was surprised to wake again to Cullen’s voice, barely more than a whisper. “As the moth sees light and goes toward flame, she should see fire and go towards Light. The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, and she will know no fear of death, for the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield.”

 

“Marvellously inappropriate,” Dorian said from the doorway. “Can’t you find something a little less _gloomy_?”

 

Cullen’s voice was little more than a croak. “Dorian.”

 

The mage came a few steps closer to the bed, leaning heavily on his staff. “How is she?”

 

“The same,” Cullen said.

 

“Her eyes are open,” Dorian said.

 

Cullen raised his head. His eyes were shadowed with weariness, his face marked with it. “They have been, from time to time. But —”

 

“Well, it’s at least —” Dorian staggered suddenly, caught himself on his staff. Cullen rose quickly, lending his shoulder for support. “Thank you. Sorry, mite exhausted.”

 

“How is — is there any news?” Cullen asked, helping the mage to the chair that stood against the wall.

 

“I’ve done what I can.” The mage rested his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. “I’m not much of a healer, but Dennet says she’s sound enough. Refuses to put the foot down, though. Frightened of the pain she remembers, Dennet thinks.”

 

“Aren’t we all?” Cullen said, very low.

 

“You really should get some rest, you know,” Dorian said. “You look worse than I feel. And, naturally, you look worse than I _look_.”

 

“Must you jest at _everything_?” Cullen snapped.

 

“My dear Commander,” Dorian said, “knowing our lovely Lady Lieutenant, a really good dirty joke is more likely to wake her than a thousand repetitions of the Chant. And if I were you, I’d skip the bits about resting at the Maker’s side, personally.”

 

“I know as many jokes as _you_ know prayers,” Cullen said.

 

“Maker,” Dorian said, his melodious voice rich and soft, “You are the fire at the heart of the world and comfort is only Yours to give. The deep dark before dawn's first light seems eternal, but know that the sun always rises.” He paused, and then said in his normal, cheerful tones: “Your turn!”

 

“I hardly think —”

 

“Oh, no, Commander, I know a bet when I hear one. Come on. Make one up, if you can’t remember any.”

 

Cullen rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, there’s — Maker, I can’t believe I’m doing this! There’s one, I think, about a nug. Or, no, about a man, in a tavern, who builds … boats and houses and so on. But no-one ever calls him the _boat-builder_ , or _the carpenter_. Because, you see —”

 

_You always were the worst joke-teller in Thedas_ , Killeen thought, as Dorian said, pained:

 

“You are _murdering_ this. I may have to fall unconscious myself to avoid hearing what you do to the punchline.” He gestured imperiously. “Start again. With the man in the tavern.”

 

Cullen sighed. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

 

Dorian chuckled. “Not a chance.”

 

“There’s a man in a tavern,” Cullen said resignedly. “Someone asks him his name, no, they ask him what he’s called. And he tells them about the house building and so on, and how no-one ever calls him _the carpenter_ , or _the wall builder_ , or _the field clearer_ or whatever. And this goes on for a while, I remember, all different sorts of things. And finally he says —”

 

_But you fuck **one** nug …._

 

Both men’s heads snapped around, and then Cullen was on his knees by the bed, Dorian leaning over to study her face. “Killeen? Killeen, can you hear me?”

 

“Water,” Killeen croaked, and Cullen grabbed the jug on the bedside table, slopping water all over the floor in pouring a cupful.

 

Killeen drank thirstily. “Thanks.”

 

“How do you feel, lady Lieutenant?” Dorian asked.

 

“It hurts,” Killeen whispered.

 

“I’ll get the —” Cullen started to rise to his feet.

 

“To hear you brutalise that joke,” she finished, and Dorian began to laugh so hard tears streamed down his cheeks. “Maker’s … _balls_ , Cullen. How can you … get that wrong? It’s the easiest … joke in the _world_.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Cullen said, lips twitching in a smile. “You’ll have to teach it to me again.”

 

“Later,” Killeen said tiredly.

 

“Yes,” Cullen said. “Later. Rest, now. Rest.”

 

She closed her eyes again, imagined she felt Cullen’s hand warm over hers, his lips brushing her fingertips.

 

“The sun always rises,” he whispered. “The sun always rises. The sun always rises.”

 

Killeen took his voice down with her into the sweet, dreamless dark. 


	36. Beneath The Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone learns to walk

Killeen grew stronger — slowly. For weeks she did little more than sleep and wake, the healers telling her that the magic Lady Vivienne and the Inquisitor had poured into her body had saved her life, but now flesh and blood needed to catch up.

 

At first, Cullen was there whenever she woke. Barely able to keep her eyes open for more than a few minutes, Killeen would sip water from the cup he held for her, and sleep again. Sometimes she thought he was about to speak, but if so, he thought better of it.

 

As she gradually mended, he began to pick up the reins of his work again. An errand took him to the Emerald Groves, and so the first time she managed to stand and take a few shaky steps, it was Dorian’s arm she clung to.

 

He joked that she’d be ready to dance at the wedding as she staggered drunkenly to the wall and back.

 

Killeen lurched to the bed, crawled onto it. _So that’s what he was trying to find the words to tell me._ “I need to rest,” she said, and closed her eyes, kept them closed until Dorian left.

 

The healers insisted she walk, and so she did, a little further each day, first leaning on their arms, and then on two sticks cut to length for her. _Very good_ , they said as she wobbled and sweated with pain and effort. _You’re doing well._

 

 _For a cripple,_ Killeen thought later, looking down at the atrophied muscles of her thigh. Side aching, she let the sticks drop to the floor, lay down and pulled the blankets over herself against the chill in the air.

 

The next day was one of those she still sometimes had, when she was so weak and tired she could barely sit up, the room spinning and tilting around her when she tried to stand. _Over-doing it_ , the healers said, but later, through the open door, Killeen heard one of them mutter _malingerer_.

 

Cullen returned, the fair skin of his face and hands slightly darkened by sun, hair fairer than ever at the tips, eyes cautious when he looked at her.

 

“I hear —” Killeen ventured. “That there’s a wedding.”

 

“I’m afraid you’ve missed it,” Cullen said. “Kill, I —”

 

She closed her eyes. “You’d better go,” she said. “Don’t keep the Inquisitor waiting.”

 

“Kill, I’m _sorry_ ,” he said. “I —”

 

“Yes,” she said, to make him stop, to make him leave. “I understand.” As hard as she tried, she couldn’t force sincerity into her voice.

 

She heard him rise to his feet. “Forgive me,” he said, very low, and left.

 

He did not come again.

 

Fel still came to visit her each day, her chatter washing over Killeen like rain on a rock, making no impact, leaving no mark - until the girl's father, the Hinterlands being safe and stable, sent for his wife and child. She hugged Killeen, gently, begged her to get well soon and visit, and then the healers shooed her out.

 

Killeen lay silent a long time after the little girl left.

 

Lay silent, too, when Dorian tried to engage her in speculation about what the Lady Vivienne would do now she was the Divine Victoria, when Cassandra brought news of new designs of arms and armour gifted to the Inquisition by grateful scholars, when Ser Michel de Chevin kissed her hand and told her she was as lovely as ever.

 

Spring days lengthened into summer, which in the Frostbacks meant there were several hours a day when it was pleasant to be outside without one’s coat. On the healer’s orders, Killeen dragged herself outdoors on the days when she could, slowly and painfully making her way across the upper courtyard to sit in the sun and watch the soldiers sparring in the training ring.

 

Summer or not, she was still cold: was always cold. It might have been warmer in the garden, built as it was to catch as much of the heat of the day as possible for the sake of the plants, but the garden was up several flights of stairs and Killeen would have had to seek help to manage them.

 

She wanted to go down to the stables and see Firefly, Master Dennet’s notes being far too short uncommunicative for her liking, but that involved stairs as well.

 

So she sat in the courtyard for the mandated hour, and then made her way back inside, to her cot, piled blankets over herself and tried to ignore the chill in her bones.

 

She was half-way through her hour one day when a slim, pale form turned up beside her.

 

“Why is it still winter?” Cole asked her with a sideways glance from beneath his absurd hat.

 

“It’s summer, Cole,” Killeen said tiredly.

 

“No.” He shook his head. “Summer outside, but inside cold and grey, deep snow on the graveyard. Why?”

 

“I don’t know.” Her side twinged, and she shivered. “I just feel the cold more, these days.”

 

“You really shouldn’t. The healers don’t like it.” Cole said seriously, and then brightened. “I can help!”

 

And he was gone.

 

Killeen sighed, closed her eyes, and leant her head back against the wall behind her. _Deep snow on the graveyard_ … the boy’s words had hit the mark, that was exactly the image in her mind now he’d said it aloud. _Drifts almost covering rows of grey grave markers, unmarked by any footsteps, the dead lying unmourned and forgotten …_

 

Footsteps pounded along the battlement above and then down the stairs, two at a time, a big man in a hurry. Killeen turned her head to look, pulse picking up a little. _Attack? Emergency?_

 

Cullen swung around the corner of the stairs, hurried down the last few, and came to a stop. “Are you …?” he began, hesitated. “Are you all right?”

 

“ _Me_?” Killeen asked. “Yes, fine. What’s happened?”

 

“Happened?” He was studying her, frowning, and Maker, she’d almost forgotten how beautiful he was, almost forgotten how much she loved to listen to his voice, almost learned to live with the absence of him in her life until he stood there, gilded by the sun, a fleck of ink on one finger and new lines around his amber eyes.

 

She forced herself to look away. “You were running.”

 

“Oh. No. Nothing’s —” Cullen rubbed the back of his neck. “Cole turned up in my office saying you were cold, and since he knows how little I like his _tricks_ I thought it must be — that there was something —”

 

Killeen sighed. “No. I’m just feeling the chill.”

 

“Oh,” Cullen said. “Would you — I could get a cloak?”

 

“I’m going in soon,” Killeen said.

 

He nodded, and turned back to the stairs.

 

“Cullen,” she said on impulse. “Cullen, I —” He turned back and her mouth dried, but she forced the words out. _I don’t always say things right_ , Cole had said to her once, _but **I** try_. “I’m sorry?”

 

A small, upright line quirked into existence between his eyebrows. “Sorry?”

 

“I miss —” _You_. “I miss what we —”

 

He sighed, shoulders slumping. “So do I.”

 

“I’m sorry I ruined it.”

 

“ _You_ didn’t. It was my fault.”

 

Killeen shook her head. “No. It was — who we are. What we are. I shouldn’t have been surprised.”

 

“I don’t want you to think it was _easy_ ,” he said quietly. “An _easy_ decision. But — it was the right one. I had to make it.”

 

“I know,” Killeen said. “Do you think — can we be friends again, Cullen?”

 

“I’d like that,” he said softly.

 

“So would I,” Killeen said past the lump in her throat. She held out her hand, and after a moment, Cullen took it. She gave his fingers a light, brief grip, shook his hand formally. “Deal. Friends.”

 

“Friends,” he agreed, let her hand go, and smiled. “And as your _friend_ , I’m going to tell you, you’ve gotten entirely too thin. Do I have to order someone to make sure you eat?”

 

“That’s not _friends_ , that’s commanding officer,” Killeen protested.

 

Cullen grinned. “Oh, no, it’s a friend who is fully prepared to abuse his authority for his own benefit.”

 

 _Friends_ , again, and so it became usual for Cullen to happen through the courtyard when Killeen was there, to pause, to talk. Often, it seemed, he was on his way from the mess hall with, just by chance, more food than he alone could eat. Often, too, it seemed, some business of the Inquisition brought him to the healer's rooms of an evening, and since he was there, it seemed natural for him to settle into the chair by Killeen's bed with his handfuls of parchments and reports, to seek her opinion and advice on this bit of business or that thorny problem.

 

 _Friends_ again, and so when Killeen woke from s _earing red lyrium fire washing over her searing scalding flesh burning to the bone_ she was not surprised to hear Cullen's low voice,  _Kill, come on now, wake up ..._

 

She didn’t ask what Cullen’s pretty Inquisitor thought of him spending his nights in a bedroll on another woman’s floor, she was just glad he was there, his familiar breathing in the dark when she couldn’t sleep, his arms warm around her when a fit of shivering had her teeth chattering.

 

 _Friends_ again, and so when Killeen finally essayed the staircases down to the stables it was Cullen's strong arm around her waist, supporting her and at the end half-carrying her, and it was Cullen who tactfully turned his back and who chased away onlookers with a glare and a snarl as Killeen wept tears of frustration and shame at her weakness, and later, tears of pity and grief as Firefly limped from her stall, awkward on three legs, ears back and eyes dull.

 

“The leg will hold her,” Master Dennet explained. “But she’s convinced herself it won’t. She won’t let us touch it, goes wild if we try.”

 

“I see,” Killeen said thickly, and at her voice the mare flicked an ear, raised her head. She pulled against the lead-rein and, at Dennet’s nod, the stablehand let her pick her way across the yard, slow, stumbling progress, until she reached Killeen and pushed her nose against her rider.

 

Killeen let her sticks fall and flung her arms around Firefly’s neck, feeling the mare’s heart pounding, hearing her laboured breath. “I’m so sorry, my darling, my sweet. I’m so sorry.”

 

The mare nosed her shoulder.

 

“That’s the closest anyone has been able to get to her without cross-ties,” Dennet said. “She still trusts you.”

 

“She shouldn’t,” Killeen said against the mare’s warm skin. “It’s my fault this happened to her.”

 

“Stop thinking about yourself,” Dennet said, “and think about your horse.”

 

“Master Dennet —” Cullen growled.

 

“No,” Killeen said, sniffed hard. “He’s right. What should I do?”

 

“See if she’ll let you handle her more,” Dennet suggested.

 

Firefly did. Killeen worked her away around the mare, having to use her as a prop when her knees buckled. The first time she stumbled suddenly and had to clutch a handful of mane to stay on her feet she heard a hiss of breath from both Dennet and Cullen, but Firefly stood like a rock.

 

Finally Killeen reached that lame front leg, tucked protectively away from the ground. She ran her hands over the muscles of the mare’s shoulder, slowly, carefully, talking all the while. “There now, my beauty, my darling, my love. Easy now. Trust me, now. Good, brave girl.” Down to the knee, Firefly’s skin twitching as if to rid herself of flies. “Good girl. Darling girl. Nothing to fear. It’s just me. Brave girl.” Lower, lower still, until her knees folded and she sat in the mud, Firefly’s hoof cradled in her hand. “Put it down, now, darling girl. Down. It’ll be all right. I promise.” As Killeen applied gentle downward pressure, the mare let her leg straighten a little, a little more, sweating now.

 

“Dennet …” Cullen said quietly.

 

“Leave her be, man,” the horsemaster said.

 

Killeen ignored them. Nothing existed in all the world but her and her horse. “A little more, darling girl. A little more. It’s all right. Good girl, brave girl, darling heart, there you go.” The hoof touched the mud and she held it there, vision blurring with tears. “Good girl. You see? It’s all right. It’s all right.”

 

It lasted only a moment and then the mare jerked her foot up again, but Killeen was almost certain she had felt Firefly put at least a little weight on that leg, and when Dennet came cautiously forward to take the lead-rein up again, the mare snorted but did not pull away.

 

The stablemaster’s hand rested on Killeen’s shoulder for a moment. “That’ll do,” he said, and led the mare away.

 

Cullen helped her up. “That was … a little _nerve-wracking_. Are you all right?”

 

She nodded wearily. “Very tired.”

 

“Let’s get you back to bed,” Cullen said.

 

The world faded to grey before they got there, though, and Killeen woke shivering in her bed. “You’ve been overdoing it,” the healer said. “Rest. No excitement for a few days.”

 

“I’ll make sure of it,” Cullen promised. 

 

“No,” Killeen protested. “I have to go back down tomorrow. She needs to walk. Every day. She needs to walk.”

 

 Cullen took her hand. “I’ll do it, Kill,” he said.

 

Killeen shook her head, the room spinning with the motion. “She won’t trust you.”

 

“She will if I wear your shirt,” Cullen said, and smiled.

 

And wear it he did, to fairly comical effect since broad as Killeen was across the shoulders for a woman, Cullen was considerably broader. She waited in a fever of apprehension, imagining Firefly bolting and crashing through a fence, hurting herself again; or kicking Cullen, in stomach or back or head …

 

But he returned, unhurt and smiling, to report that Firefly had put the hoof down again, had done so twice.

 

When the healers let Killeen up again, he helped her to the stairs and settled her where she had a clear view of the courtyard, told her to wait and hurried down the steps and around the corner to the stables. Killeen leaned on the wall, shivering, hand pressed against the ache in her side, and after a few moments Cullen reappeared, Firefly on a lead rein, slow and limping, but …

 

Limping on _four_ legs, not three.

 

Cullen led the mare in a slow circle as Killeen watched, stopped to stroke the mare’s bad leg, encouraged her on again.

 

“She’s still beautiful,” Cole said quietly.

 

Killeen was too weary to be startled. “She is.”

 

“Even if she never runs again, everything that makes her who she is, still there. Bravest of all, unflinching.”

 

“Yes,” Killeen said, heart aching as she watched Cullen lead Firefly back toward the stable.

 

“He hurts, too,” Cole said sadly. “Wishes for more, tries to be content.”

 

“What?” Killeen said, turning. The movement made her side twinge sharply and a wave of dizziness swept over her. “Cole, is Cullen hurting?”

 

He ignored her question, frowning. “Your side hurts, still.”

 

“Yes, it’s slow to heal. Cole —” It was suddenly hard to breathe. Killeen licked dry lips. “Can you … get me … some water?”

 

And then Cullen was there, helping her up, half-carrying her back to the healer’s rooms, arguing with someone over the top of her head.

 

Killeen was too tired to follow it. “Lie down,” she said, and was relieved when they helped her to her bed and went to continue their argument in the hall.

 

 _Cole_ , she thought, wanting him, wanting him to explain. _Cole, if you’re listening in on me now — Cole?_

 

But he was not, it seemed, and her eyes were closing, and her memory of his words fuzzed and blurred into sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	37. The Falling Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which blood is shed.

Killeen’s thirst woke her, her mouth dry as bone and throat aching for water.

 

She raised herself on an elbow and paused as the bed rocked beneath her and the room revolved slowly.

 

Cullen looked up from the papers spread across his lap, then gathered them and laid them aside. “Kill?”

 

“Water,” she croaked, and he went to pour her some, held the cup for her. “More.”

 

The second cup went some way to easing her thirst and she sank back to the pillows. “Thanks. What was all the yelling about?”

 

His mouth quirked down. “That idiot told me you’d recover faster if I stopped coddling you. He said you were enjoying the attention.”

 

“I’d enjoy it more if I could stay awake for it,” Killeen said without thinking, then wished the words back. _Maker’s balls, why not just shout from the rooftops that I want someone else’s man to dance attendance on me?_

 

Cullen didn’t seem to notice her admission. “I asked him if he’d enjoy my boot up his arse, because that was what he’d get if you didn’t start improving.”

 

“I’m all healed up,” Killeen said. With an effort, she pushed down the blankets and pulled up her shirt to show him the faint pink scars on her side. “The healer says I’m malingering.”

 

“ _You_?” Cullen said, mouth twitching up. “Has he _met_ you?” Then he frowned. “How did you get that bruise?”

 

Killeen looked down at the purplish mark that spread from her ribs to her hip. “I’m … not sure. Must have banged something.”

 

“I’ll get some salve,” Cullen said, standing.

 

“Can you stoke the fire?” Killeen asked, pulling the blankets back up.

 

“Of course.”

 

She drifted off again while he was gone, half woke to the touch of his hands, gentle and warm against her chilled skin as he applied the salve. Blankets, heavy against her shoulder, a hand touching hers, flames cracking in the fireplace as he added wood …

 

_The crackling of the snow crust beneath her boots, flakes building up on her shoulders until they weigh her down, cold and damp. One step, another step, eyes on the tall figure ahead, torch held high, fair head crowned with snow, striding onward …_

 

_He stumbles, catches himself, takes one more step and falls._

 

_Killeen plunges forward, dragging her feet through deep drifts that clutch at her legs as if deliberately, maliciously, trying to keep her from reaching him. The distance she has to cover seems to grow, not shrink, as she staggers forward, heart pounding with effort, breath coming in sobbing gasps and a stitch in her side so fierce she can barely stand. She can hear him calling her, Kill, come on, Kill —_

 

_Finally she reaches him, the garish cloak dimmed by a layer of snow, seizes his shoulders and tries to heave him over. He’s heavy, too heavy for her to move and she pants and sobs and tries, again and again, the blizzard heavier now, the chill of it biting to the bone. Snow piling up, higher and higher, and finally she pulls and heaves and curses and he rolls and she sees his eyes, open and sightless, touches his face and finds the skin cold as the snow that falls heavier and heavier on them both. Still, he’s calling her, although his lips are still and blue, calling her name as the snow covers him no matter how she tries to brush it away, falling faster than she can keep up with, and she scoops frantically, digging with numb hands, but it’s deeper and deeper and now she can’t see his face at all, only the fringe of his cloak._

 

_And then that is gone too and she is alone._

 

_The snow pours down, the chill reaching deeper and deeper inside her, cracking her bones like ice-laden branches, seeping into every corner of her heart, freezing the tears on her cheeks, freezing his name before it can leave her lips, hearing him from beneath the snow, Kill, please, Kill —_

 

“Kill, please, wake _up_!”

 

She opened her eyes.

 

There was no snow, no blizzard. She was in her bed, Cullen leaning over her with his hands on her shoulders. He was in his shirt-sleeves, cheeks flushed with heat and the hair at his temples damp and curling with sweat, while behind him the fire blazed almost to the flue.

 

And yet she was still cold beyond bearing, as if the blizzard still gripped her, numbing her hands and feet, making her shiver so convulsively the chattering of her teeth sent stabs of pain through her jaw. The cold stole her breath, squeezed her racing, labouring heart, froze her voice as she tried to ask him for _water, please, water, I’m so thirsty …_

 

Cullen took her hand, touched her cheek. “Maker’s _breath_ , you’re _ice_.” He flung himself to his feet and strode to the door.

 

Raised voices, one of them Cullen’s, too far away for Killeen to make sense of them. She wrapped her arms around the ache in her side, curled around it, tried to make her lungs draw in enough air to breathe through it.

 

The healer, looking down at her: “A chill brought on by over-exertion.”

 

“This is _not_ a chill,” Cullen said, shouldered the healer aside hard enough to make the man stagger, and swept Killeen up off the bed in a tangle of blankets.

 

_Ceiling, doorway, open sky_ … She watched the stars swinging crazily beyond Cullen’s shoulder as he carried her across the courtyard and up the stairs, saw them replaced by the lamps of the Great Hall, which seemed to rise up into the air, further and further away …

 

Cullen glanced down at her. “Hold on, Kill,” he said, and Killeen couldn’t make sense of the urgency in his voice. “Hold on. Don’t let go. Don’t you _dare_ let go.”

 

_Yes, ser._

 

Through a door, up a flight of stairs into a room rich with rugs and lamps and glass. Voices — Cullen’s, ragged, a woman’s, warm.

 

Gentle hands touched her, green glow, and the room swung more slowly, settled, was still.

 

Killeen realised she was lying on the Inquisitor’s big, soft bed, and the Inquisitor herself, robe slung carelessly over her shoulders, was looking down at her.

 

“Water,” she begged, and the Inquisitor herself turned to pour a goblet full, held it to Killeen’s lips.

 

“It was — I’ve seen men go down in battle, wounds too deep for the healers to reach them,” Cullen said. “They shake, like that, can’t get their breath, like that. But the wound’s healed.” He took a shaky breath, ran his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry — with Lady Vivienne gone I couldn’t think who —”

 

“Cullen, of course it’s all right,” the Inquisitor said. She laid her hand on Killeen’s chest and frowned. Another pulse of healing magic swept from her fingers and Killeen felt her heart steady a little, slow slightly. Everything seemed very far away and unimportant, the bed, the room, the Inquisitor, her own body — even Cullen. “What does the healer say?”

 

“A _chill_ ,” Cullen said, fists clenching, “a _chill_ , and her dying in front of him.”

 

“There _are_ agues that would explain the rigour and the sweat,” the Inquisitor said. Her robe had slipped from one shoulder, and Killeen noticed distantly that Cullen was so accustomed to the mage’s body he didn’t even glance at the creamy breast now visible. “But her skin is cool. Kill, can you hear me? Do you have pain, anywhere?”

 

“Side,” Killeen croaked.

 

“She has a bruise,” Cullen said, and Killeen felt him draw up her shirt, and then: “ _Maker_. It wasn’t _that_ bad —”

 

Hands touched the ache, eased it. “She _is_ bleeding,” the Inquisitor said. “I can feel it. But —” She frowned. “I wish I’d had time to learn more from Vivienne before she left.”

 

“We can send for her,” Cullen said.

 

“It’d take days,” the Inquisitor said, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.

 

“But you can — she’s better, now,” Cullen pleaded. “You can keep her well, until Lady Vivienne comes. Can’t you?”

 

“Cullen, I’ve used almost everything I have already, and it won’t last.” The Inquisitor touched Killeen’s side again. “I can feel the blood, it’s flooding out of her, but where it’s coming from … there’s nothing. If it was a wound I could see, then I could — but I just can’t tell.”

 

“If you could see it, you could help her?” Cullen asked urgently, and when the Inquisitor nodded: “I’ll be right back.”

 

The bed gave a little as he got up, and Killeen wanted to cry out _no, don’t leave me_ but before she could make her numb lips co-operate, he was gone at a run.

 

“Kill,” the Inquisitor said, leaning over to look in her eyes, hand gentle on her cheek. “Stay awake, now. Stay with me. You’re in shock, do you understand? You have to fight it.” Another glow of magic, fainter now. “I’m not telling Cullen when he gets back that he’s too late. Hear me? Keep fighting it.”

 

Unmeasurable time passed, marked only by each gasping breath, each beat of her staggering heart, the chill creeping slowly back. Killeen fought it, struggled to keep the ceiling above her clear and steady, to keep her eyes from closing, fought for a breath and the one after it and the one after that …

 

Footsteps, a new voice. A face she knew, one of the Chargers, the dark-skinned man they called Stitches, using language worthy of the Iron Bull himself when he saw her side.

 

And Cullen — Killeen saw with a jolt of horror that ripped the haze around her aside that his hands were full of blue bottles, a double fistful, and she opened her mouth to say _no, Cullen, no_ —

 

He dropped them in the Inquisitor’s lap and she nodded her thanks, drained two in haste and laid her hands on Killeen’s flank again.

 

“I’ll have to cut her,” Stitches said. “She’ll have to be still.”

 

“I can make her sleep,” the Inquisitor said, but the Charger’s surgeon shook his head.

 

“Too shocky,” he said. He handed a cup to Cullen. “Get her to drink this. All of it.”

 

Cullen nodded, and slipped an arm beneath Killeen’s head, raising her a little and holding the cup to her lips. She was desperately thirsty again but the concoction in the cup tasted so foul she gagged on the first mouthful.

 

“All of it,” Cullen said remorselessly, and tilted the cup again. He gave her a brief respite as she swallowed against the bile that burned her throat and threatened to flood her mouth, then made her drink again, and again.

 

By the time the cup was empty, Killeen’s mouth was numb from the concentration of elfroot in the dose, Cullen’s face drifting in and out of focus as he laid her down again and then leaned over her, hands on her shoulders. “You must hold still, Kill, understand?”

 

“This’ll hurt,” Stitches warned.

 

“How much?” Killeen croaked. “How much will it hurt?”

 

“On a scale of one to _dragon_ , probably a seven.”

 

“Fuckin’ nothing, then,” Killeen said. “Had … worse … eating breakfast.”

 

But she hadn’t, and Stitches was right: it _did_ hurt, through the elfroot, even through the Inquisitor’s magic. First a sharp, keen pang that was followed by a gush of warmth that flooded down Killeen’s side and spread across the sheet beneath her.

 

“What are you _doing_?” Cullen asked sharply, his grip on Killeen’s shoulders slackening a little.

 

“That’s blood she’s already lost,” Stitches said. “Hold her still, man, this is hard enough as it is.”

 

Then a sharp, twisting pain like an arrow striking her side but slowly, slowly, pushed in or pushed out by a remorseless, vicious hand. Killeen gritted her teeth, ground them, as the pain went on and on … and _on_ and _on_ …

 

“Look at me,” Cullen’s warm voice said, and Killeen opened her eyes, met his steady amber gaze. His voice was soft and even but his jaw was set and there were marks of strain around his eyes. “Nearly done, now, Kill. Nearly done. Hold on. Nearly done.”

 

It was a lie, the first twenty times he said it, and then suddenly Stitches gave a crow of triumph and it was true. The pain eased, settled into a bearable ache. The Inquisitor gulped more lyrium, laid her hands back on Killeen’s abdomen and Killeen _felt_ her flesh knit, skin drawing together, felt her heart rate slow and could, suddenly, get enough air without straining for it.

 

She drifted in a pleasant lassitude made up of the combined effects of sudden relief from pain and a truly massive dose of elfroot, listening with mild interest to the voices around her.

 

“What the fuck is this, then?” Stitches asked, holding out one hand with a tiny fleck of something _half the size of a nail paring_ balanced on a bloody forefinger.

 

The Inquisitor peered at it, brushed it with the tip of her own manicured finger. “Dragon scale,” she said matter-of-factly.

 

“It must have in there when the wound was closed,” Stitches said. “Working its way around, until it lodged against one of the big veins and ripped it open.”

 

“My fault,” the Inquisitor said. “When we found her — I was thinking about being _fast_ , not _careful_.”

 

“That’s been inside her this whole time?” Cullen asked, and the surgeon nodded. “ _Maker’s breath,_ how could they not realise?”

 

“It’s a fragment of scale from a corrupt lyrium dragon, Cullen,” the Inquisitor said patiently. “It resists magic, and it doesn’t _feel_ like anything they would have had contact with. _I_ couldn’t feel it, and _I_ spent twenty minutes picking similar scales out of my arm after the fight in Haven.”

 

“Is it the only one?” Cullen asked.

 

“Is it?” Stitches asked the Inquisitor, carefully putting the piece of scale in a jar and sealing it.

 

The mage leaned forward, fingers tracing lines over Killeen’s side and ribs, eyes closed. “I can’t feel anything,” she said at last. “No bleeding. No dark spots. No gaps. But we’ll send for Vivienne, just in case.”

 

“Ship cutting through the waves, sail belled full.” Cole said, squatting atop the Inquisitor’s desk. “Darling, the winds wait for _me_.”

 

“Maker’s fucking foreskin!” Stitches said, leaping to his feet.

 

“Vivienne’s on her way?” the Inquisitor asked, and Cole nodded.

 

He hopped down from the desk and was suddenly beside Killeen. “You wanted me, and I couldn’t come. I’m sorry. I had to go a long way to find someone who knew her.”

 

“’s all right,” Killeen managed to say.

 

“The snow will melt, now,” Cole said seriously, and in Killeen’s hazy state it seemed to almost have a note of warning. Then, as suddenly as he had arrived, he was gone.

 

“He’s right, I think,” the Inquisitor said. “She’ll be all right, with rest.”

 

“Warmth and fluids,” Stitches said, fastening his satchel and slinging it over his shoulder.

 

Cullen let out a long breath. “Thank you,” he said fervently, shaking the surgeon’s hand and then taking the Inquisitor in his arms. Killeen closed her eyes against the sight. “Maker bless you both.”

 

“Cullen —” the Inquisitor said after a moment, slightly breathless. “Cullen — you’re squashing me.”

 

“Forgive me,” he said.

 

She laughed. “Always. Even for turning my bedroom into a surgery. I’d better get someone to change these sheets.”

 

More voices, and Killeen felt herself lifted, laid down again on dry linen. Hands stripped her clothes from her, and she was washed with soft towel, then re-dressed. Silence again, broken by the chink of pottery. The bed sagged a little. “Come on, Kill, you should drink this,” Cullen said.

 

She opened her eyes and began to raise herself on her elbows, but he slipped an arm beneath her shoulders and lifted her to lean against him, held the cup to her lips. Killeen tasted tea, strong and milky, and sipped obediently until the cup was empty, head clearing a little. The crushing fatigue that had lain over her for weeks had softened, transmuted into a sleepy weariness that was almost pleasant.

 

Cullen set the cup aside and adjusted the blankets around her, still holding her against his chest. “Warm enough?”

 

“Getting there,” Killeen said. Through their linen shirts she could feel the heat of his body slowly seeping in to her own chilled flesh.

 

“You’re going to be fine.” His familiar voice sounded odd, heard in tandem with the trip-hammer of his heartbeat beneath her head. “It wasn’t red lyrium itself, and it didn’t carry any taint.”

 

They were things that Killeen herself hadn’t thought to worry about, but now the idea caught at her throat. “Andraste …” she said, voice shaking.

 

“Didn’t happen, won’t happen,” Cullen said. His hand made warm, comforting circles on her back. “You need to rest, and then you’ll be fine. As good as new.”

 

“ _That’ll_ take some doing,” Killeen said, forcing herself to keep her tone light, was rewarded by Cullen’s soft chuckle.

 

“Better than new,” he said, and paused. “As good as when I — _sent_ you. There.”

 

“Sent me to do a job,” she reminded him. “Which I did.”

 

“You could have died there, Kill. For days I thought you had. And you’ve been dying by inches in front of me since then, and I —” His arms tightened around her.

 

_And if only we weren’t sitting on his lover’s bed._

 

Killeen took a deep breath. “Cullen?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Did you carry me all the way up here by yourself?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Killeen straightened, forcing him to loosen his hold on her, and looked him in the face with a frown of concern. “I do hope you haven’t put your back out.” He gaped at her, and for good measure she added: “You’re not as young as you used to be, you know.”

 

It won her a twitch of his lips, a lightening of the guilt in his eyes. “There’s gratitude,” he said. “From a woman, what, a year younger than I am?”

 

“One year, eight months, thank you,” Killeen said with great dignity. And then, because she was so very tired, and the temptation was so very great, she laid her head back down on his shoulder. “I think you’re going to have to carry me back down again when the Inquisitor wants her bed back.”

 

“If you’re going to make jibes about my age,” Cullen said, “you can damn well walk.” His hand was gentle on her hair, belying his tone. “But not just now. Lady Trevelyan has found accommodation elsewhere for the night.”

 

“Nice of her,” Killeen murmured, letting her eyes close.

 

If he answered, she didn’t hear it above the slow, steady beat of his heart beneath her head, a rhythm that seemed to rock her like the waves beneath Vivianne’s ship, easing her gently into a deep and dreamless sleep.  

 


	38. Face To Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things are, finally, said out loud.

  
Killeen went from sleep to wakefulness instantly at the sound of footsteps. Adrenaline shot through her veins and kicked heart and senses into overdrive. _Ten feet away …Inquisitor’s room, that’s top of the stairs … Cullen still sleeping, on my right … Maker, neither of us has so much as a belt-knife!_

She lay still, listening hard. _Two of them … women or elves … no armour …_

The footsteps tiptoed closer and Killeen considered and rejected the lamp on the bedside table as too far away. _Pillow might buy me a second’s surprise …_

“Don’t they look sweet?” Josephine Montilyet whispered, and Killeen relaxed and stopped trying to remember everything in arm’s reach that could possibly be used as a weapon. “Like two little children.”

“Everyone looks like a child when they sleep,” the Inquisitor answered, and Killeen tensed again, although not for the same reason. _In **her** bed, with **her** man … Cullen, wake **up**!_ “Do you remember where my green boots are?”

“I burned them,” Josephine said matter-of-factly. “They were appalling.”

“If I thought that was true, I’d turn you into a toad.”

 _I’ll just lie still,_ Killeen thought, _as if I’m still asleep, she’ll find her shoes and leave._

“I _considered_ burning them. Here.” A pause. “ _You_ do not look like a child when you sleep. You look like yourself, with your eyes closed.”

The Inquisitor laughed softly. “You _do_. Sometimes you even suck your thumb.”

“I do no such thing!”

“I think it’s sweet. The composed and dignified Josephine Montilyet, sucking her thumb, clutching her stuffed animal.”

“I do not have a stuffed animal!” The ambassador’s voice was outraged, and the Inquisitor laughed.

“ _I’m_ your stuffed animal,” she said, low and husky.

A pause, a soft wordless murmur.

Killeen cracked an eyelid, saw two slim figures locked together in front of the window, the early morning sunlight gilding the long, fair hair of one and drawing sparks from the golden ruffles of the other’s blouse.

Without conscious thought she rolled out of bed, took three long strides forward and punched Her Blessed Worship, Herald of Andraste and Grand Inquisitor of Thedas, in the face.

Josephine shrieked as the Inquisitor reeled backward, and fled, calling “Guards! Guards!”

 _I have about half a minute,_ Killeen judged, _before they’re here and they either arrest me or fill me full of arrows on the spot._

Sparks began to crawl around the Inquisitor’s fingers as she recovered her balance but Killeen had fought mages before and she snatched the blankets from the bed, catching one brief glimpse of Cullen’s startled, sleepy face, and flung them, tangling the Inquisitor’s hands just long enough to get her arms around the other woman and bear her to the ground.

“He’s a _good man_ ,” she said, in the seconds she had left before arrows or lightning ended her life. “You have _no right_ to hurt him. He’s not some Orlesian who won’t care what you do!”

Then hands seized her and lifted her bodily off the mage, arms wrapped around her, pinning her. Cullen’s voice, breathless by her ear. “Kill, what —”

She struggled against his grip as the Inquisitor freed herself from the blankets and rose. “She’s not what you think! You don’t know what she — ”

Cullen thrust her behind him hard enough to send her sprawling against the bed, and spun to face the Inquisitor, weight on the balls of his feet, empty hands spread ready. “What are you?” he asked, cold and flat. Pounding footsteps on the stairs presaged an influx of guards, swords drawn. The foremost of them looked from their Inquisitor to their Commander, hesitated as Cullen held up a warning hand.

The Inquisitor cupped a hand over her bleeding nose. “I’m your fucking Inquisitor,” she said, muffled. “And I think your fucking Lieutenant just broke my nose!”  
  
“Prove it,” Cullen said, gaze unwavering. “Kill, a sword, if you can find me one.”

Killeen looked from him to the guards. “I don’t think —” she started to say.

The Inquisitor interrupted her. “Cullen, I’m _me_!”

“So all abominations say, at the beginning,” Cullen said evenly. A ripple of unease ran through the guards at the word. “What did you see, Kill, that made you suspect?”

“Um,” Killeen said, “that’s not what I meant. I didn’t see anything abomination-ey.”

Still, Cullen didn’t look away from the Inquisitor. “Then what?”

“I’d rather not say,” Killeen mumbled, with a glance at the guards.

“She saw me kissing Josie and then she broke my nose,” the Inquisitor said.

“Oh, _Fereldens_ ,” a smooth, amused voice said from behind the guards. “No need to kneel, my good man, just step aside. Thank you.” The ranks of guards parted to reveal Vivienne — _Divine Victoria_ , Killeen reminded herself — surveying the room with her inscrutable smile. She cast a glance at Killeen. “I see that demon remains as trustworthy as ever. Normally I’d be annoyed to have travelled day and night after an unbidden visit from a denizen of the Fade only to find the patient I expected to be a death’s door up and involved in a fist fight, but this is too _delicious_ to have missed.” She flicked her fingers at the guards. “You can go. And do have some tea sent to my old quarters on your way. The kitchen knows how I like it.”

Striding across the room, she pushed Cullen a step backwards with a palm on his chest. “Relax, Commander. She’s not possessed.” As Cullen lowered his hands, Vivienne turned to the Inquisitor and touched her nose with one glowing finger. “And your nose is fine. Now run along. I imagine by now dear Josephine has called a general alarm. Better go and show you haven’t been murdered in your bed.”

“Oh, Andraste’s _girdle_ ,” the Inquisitor said, and went in haste, not without a dark look at Killeen which promised a later conversation.

Vivienne turned her gaze on Killeen. “Wasted journey though it may have been, I’m glad you’ve decided not to die, if only because Transfigurations is such a _dreary_ verse. What was the problem?”

“The Inquisitor—” Killeen’s voice caught on the word. “Said it was part of a dragon scale.” She put a hand to her side. “Here.”

“Indeed?” Vivienne said, raising her eyebrows. “Lift up your shirt. Come now, quickly, or the tea will be over-brewed.” She studied Killeen’s side, laid a hand on it, long dark fingers a sharp contrast to Killeen’s own pale skin. Light pulsed beneath her palm, blue rather than the green of healing, and Killeen gasped with the shock of it. “Nothing there now.”

“Are you _sure_?” Cullen asked, watching closely.

“My dear man, of _course_ I’m sure. I’ve been testing those scales for _months_. I’d give you the technical details, but I doubt either of you are capable of understanding them.” She smiled. “Do relax. Your Lieutenant will live to break the Inquisitor’s nose another day.”

At the reminder, Cullen gave Killeen a quizzical glance, and she felt her cheeks colour.

Vivienne regarded them both with amusement. “I will positively _insist_ on hearing the whole story,” she said, “but later. Changing the weather patterns all the way from Val Royeaux to here does leave one positively _parched_.”

She swept out, ignoring Killeen’s stammered thanks.

Cullen sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m rather curious about the _whole story_ myself,” he said mildly. “I’ve had … more _peaceful_ mornings.”

“I really didn’t think she was possessed,” Killeen said hurriedly, pleating the bottom of her shirt between her fingers. “That’s not what I meant when — it’s not what I meant.”

“Was it a dream?” Cullen asked gently, and for a moment Killeen was tempted to say yes, yes it was. It was an explanation he would understand and immediately believe, one that would require no elaboration, one that would close the subject as if the whole thing had never happened.

_But I have to tell him. He has to know that she …_

“Not a dream,” she said, and sat down beside him. “It — Cullen, I’m sorry. But the Inquisitor and Josephine — they’re … more than friends. Very much more than friends.”

A small upright line quirked into existence between his brows. “And?”

“I _mean_ , she’s — _they’re_ — together.” Killeen couldn’t look at the pain she knew would be in his face. “ _Together_ together. Cullen, I —”

“They’ve been _together_  together for months,” Cullen said calmly, and Killeen’s head snapped up.  
  
“You … _knew_? About them?” she asked incredulously.

“Most of Skyhold knows,” Cullen said. He gave a small smile. “If you hadn’t been sulking in the healer’s rooms secretly bleeding to death all summer you’d have known, too.”

“Oh,” Killeen said. “I’m sorry, Cullen, I’m so sorry.”

He looked at her blankly. “Why?”

She had to rearrange everything she thought she knew about him. “You’re … all right with it?”

“I’m not _that_ close-minded,” Cullen said.

“I — ah,” Killeen stammered. “Far from it, it seems. Certainly more open-minded than _I_ could be.”

He frowned. “She saved the world, Kill. Don’t you think she deserves some happiness?”

“Not at your expense,” Killeen shot back, and closed her eyes. “Sorry. That was out of line. It’s your business, not mine.”

“How is it at _my_ expense?” Cullen asked a bit blankly.

“Because you — Cole told me. He didn’t know he shouldn’t, you know what he’s like.” Killeen felt the prickle of threatening tears, blinked hard.

Cullen shook his head slightly, like a man trying to clear his head after one drink too many. “Cole told you _what_?”

“How you never knew what love was like until you saw her running for the trebuchets in Haven, how much you longed for her, how much you wish she loved you the way you love her.” Killeen paused. Despite her best efforts, the tears overflowed. “I didn’t understand, but now I see — you don’t deserve to be treated like that, Cullen, no matter how much you love her.”

The corner of Cullen’s mouth quirked up. “If Cole told you I love the Inquisitor, he’s losing his touch, for which we all ought to be profoundly grateful.”

Killeen gaped at him. “But you _do_ love her. I’ve seen you looking at her. I saw your face when you carried her into the camp after Haven, watching her here in Skyhold, it’s clear as day how you feel!”

“You …” He paused, and said slowly: “I’ve been in love with the Inquisitor all this time?”

Humiliatingly, Killeen found the tears falling faster. “I’m sorry,” she said, voice cracking. “I’m sorry! But I c-can’t _stand_ it to watch you l-love her and watch her t-treat you like _this_. You deserve better!” She pressed her hands over her mouth, trying to stop the sobs, but they, and the words she had sworn she’d never embarrass them both by saying, spilled past her fingers, uncontrollable as a river at spring’s first thaw. “I know it was j-just a — _n-nothing_ , that night, that it d-didn’t _m-mean_ , that you ch-chose _her_ and I know how _uncomfortable_ it m-must be to y-you, but I can’t _h-help_ it and I c-can’t _stop_ it, I can’t, I _c-cant_! I love you, Cullen, I _love_ you, I always have, I’m s-sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll g-go away somewhere, I’m sorry, but I l-love you, I love you, I d-do, oh, I do, I do, I _do_!”

“Kill.” Cullen touched her shoulder, and then put his arm around her and drew her firmly to his chest. Even humiliated as she was, there was such sheer physical comfort in the strength of his grip, in the hand rubbing her back, that Killeen couldn’t help clinging to him and she wept and wept, wept all the tears unshed as she’d seen them together, as she’d longed for him Crestwood and the Western Approach, as she’d held him in the dark of the night and feared for his soul, wept tears of lonely misery and tears of silent terror as, for what must surely be the last time, Cullen held her in his arms.

“How long do you think you’re going to cry?” he asked after a while.

“As l-long as I w-want!” Killeen said, face buried in his shirt.

“It’s just, I want to say something,” Cullen said. “And I want to make sure you can hear me.” He paused. “So do you think you could try to stop, just for a few moments?”

Killeen heaved a hard breath, another, held the third until her lungs burned. Again. The convulsive sobs slowed, eased to hiccoughs. “All right.”

Cullen put his hands on her shoulders and set her upright. “Kill, Killeen. Look at me.” She raised her head, and he smiled at her, beautiful as the sunrise. “All those times you talked about … did you really never know I was looking at _you_?”

There had been moments, in the past, when Killeen had allowed herself to imagine Cullen declaring his love for her: what he would say, how she would answer. In her fantasies, she was sometimes witty, sometimes poetic, sometimes shy and sweet.

She had never imagined that what would actually come out of her mouth would be: “You _what_?”

Nor had she ever imagined Cullen laughing at her, not the chuckle or the half-breath of humour that she worked so hard to win from him when the darkness before them and the weight he carried chilled his eyes and bowed his shoulders, but warm, whole-hearted, open laughter as if there was nothing and no-one to fear in the world.

“Kill, Kill, Killeen,” he said, still laughing, “I thought that I was making you so uncomfortable you ran away to Crestwood…”

“ _Me_?” Killeen said. “You told me my _unwanted attentions_ were _unpleasant_!”

“I was talking about myself, you dolt,” Cullen said, leaning his forehead against hers. “There you were talking about _secret affairs_ when you’d never given me any sign you’d want …”

“With the _Inquisitor_!” Killeen protested. “You were pining after her like —”

“After _you_ ,” Cullen said. “Ever since Haven, after _you_ , always, Kill, I saw you run out to face those monsters without even needing an order, because it needed to be done, and I realised that if you never came back that would be the end of my life, even if I lived another fifty years.”

Killeen closed her eyes. “Cole told me,” she said. “But I thought —”

“He was talking about the _Inquisitor_ ,” Cullen said. “Andraste’s _tits_ , how much time we’ve wasted.”

“Cullen,” Killeen said, to hear his name in her mouth, to say it for the first time the way she had always longed to say it. She took his beautiful face between her hands, and then, because it was, after all, exactly who she had always been to him, she looked him straight in the eye and said in her best shocked tone: “ _Language_!”

And so, when their lips met for the first time, it was in a kiss crooked with smiles and interrupted by laughter, and it was that, more than anything he’d said, which convinced Killeen it was real: no dream or fantasy of hers would have had both of them shaking with mirth; would have had her nose slightly blocked and her ribs sore from sobbing; would have had Cullen muttering that he’d show _her_ a private liaison as he pulled her down onto the bed.

His hand slid beneath her shirt and she gasped at the warmth of it, heat spreading from his fingers to run through her veins.

Cullen stopped at her sharp breath. “Does that hurt?” he asked, and quickly hiked her shirt to study her side. “Should I get Vivianne?”

“Doesn’t hurt,” Killeen assured him breathlessly.

“Oh.” He smiled down at her, eyes dark, fingers gently stroking the scar on her side, and she suddenly felt naked and exposed. _Don’t be stupid,_ she chided herself, _he’s seen your body before, more than once_. But this was different, and she found herself folding her arms across her chest.

Cullen drew back a little. “Kill,” he said gently. “Nothing you don’t want.”

“This would be easier in the dark,” she said, joke falling flat with the trembling of her voice.

He smiled. “I’ll close my eyes.”

And so he learned her body as a blind man would, with hands and lips and tongue, tracing the scars that striped her face and ran down her neck, finding the raised reminder of an arrow wound, the place on her back where a Carta dagger had damaged something deeper than muscle and left a handspan of flesh permanently numb.

Then he found places where she was not numb but very sensitive indeed, places that made her gasp and moan and writhe beneath his touch, feeling her whole body centred on the point of heat within her, building and building until suddenly the wave of her release had her shaking and trembling in his arms.

“Are you all right?” he asked against her neck, and the feel of his lips and his voice against her skin made her heart begin to race again.

“Oh, yes,” she assured him, and reached down between them. “Cullen — please, I want —”

She found the ample evidence that he _wanted_ , too, felt him shiver and gasp at her touch. “Sure?” he whispered.

“ _Maker_ , yes, I’m sure,” she told him and so they were laughing again as they became one, laughter that caught into gasps and sighs and whispered pleas as she arched beneath him, wanting more, wanting _all_ of him, and he obliged, eyes still closed in obedience to her wishes.

“Cullen,” she said, reached up to cup his cheek. “Look at me, Cullen.”

His eyes opened, and the expression of joy and wonder in them almost took her over the edge again. “Maker,” he breathed. “What you have created, no-one can tear asunder.”

And then he was moving again and she was moving with him, a new rhythm as easy and natural as when they fought side-by-side or back-to-back, each utterly attuned to the other’s body, so completely in harmony that as her body tightened and her fingers clutched his back Killeen could hardly tell if the spiralling heat within was hers or his, if the voice crying _yes, please, now, oh, now_ came from Cullen’s lips or her own, which of them embraced and which was embraced, only that they were, they _were_ , _they were_ —

Light flooded through her, a golden wave that seemed to have no shore, and then Cullen groaned her name and the wave broke over them with a force that had her seeing stars as he shuddered against her, a long slow fall together until they both were still.

“Maker,” Cullen said dazedly after a moment. He raised himself on his elbows but Killeen wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him back down. “I’m heavy,” he protested.

“I’m strong,” Killeen pointed out, refusing to let him go, and he relaxed again, face against hers, lips against her cheek. Her scarred cheek, Killeen realised, and realised too she didn’t care.

“You know we could have done that months ago if not for that damn messenger,” Cullen whispered.

“Definitely a candidate for a tour of the Hissing Wastes,” Killeen agreed, and smiled to _feel_ as well as hear him chuckle.

“I can’t do _that_ ,” he said. “Man’s a newly-wed. And I’m feeling charitable toward all the world right now.”

“Wait,” Killeen said. “Did he — was _that_ the wedding I missed?”

Cullen raised himself a little and looked down at her. “You thought I’d _married_ her? Without saying _anything_ to you?”

“It made sense at the time,” Killeen muttered defensively.

He kissed her. “You are an idiot,” he said gently. “And _I_ am an idiot. And I love you.”

“So glad I didn’t miss _that_ ,” Dorian said from the stairs. “Sweet enough to make my teeth ache.”

“ _Dorian_!” Cullen snatched the sheets and blankets up, flushing beet red. “ _Knock_ , man!”

Killeen looked over Cullen’s shoulder to see the mage lounging against the balustrade, head tilted to one side.

He winked at her, and then smiled, and said, with flawless mimicry:

“I’m … so. _Sorry_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it, folks! Thanks for being along for the ride. if you’ve enjoyed this you might like to check out the work of Alison Adare at https://www.facebook.com/NewTwists


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